Perhaps Connor was right, thought Gaby, stopping to take off her sandals and liberate her stinging feet. Nancy had become a myth, fixed by her absence into a series of rigid meanings. She shouldn’t be going to see her because you can’t go back to the past. On that wretched day outside Stefan’s flat, the two of them had set out on different roads and every turning they had taken, decision they had made, person they had met, loss they had suffered, love they had gained and joy they had experienced without the other had made the difference between them greater. They would be awkward strangers, with nothing to say.
Yet she needed to see Nancy again, to turn her from the ghost she had become back into an ordinary woman. And, anyway, she had come this far and knew she wasn’t going to turn back now.
It was dark by the time she arrived at the edge of Rashmoor and stopped to consider what she should do next. The village was larger than she had expected, and it lay along the river that had flooded it so disastrously a few months ago. It was hard to believe that the quiet, darkly glinting strip of water had caused so much damage, or that until recently the stone houses had been half submerged and the small, hump-backed bridge isolated like a serpent’s coil in the rushing flood. Gaby was cold and tired and drained by the emotions of the day. She shivered involuntarily and pulled her jacket closer. The moors stretched round the houses in all directions, and the lights from the windows and smoke from the chimneys made the scene cosy, but at the same time alarming in its remoteness.
Gaby walked down what was clearly the high street, although it was deserted now, past several houses, most of whose curtains were drawn so that she couldn’t see inside. There was a pub called the Green Man from which laughter and voices could be heard, a café with its blinds down and the ‘closed’ notice hanging on its door, a hardware shop, a grocery, a newsagent’s and a small post office. When she reached the spot where she thought the cheery reporter had been standing in her wellington boots, she halted and gazed round her, trying to remember exactly where Nancy had been coming from, then she meandered uncertainly along the road, occasionally seeing through windows women who weren’t Nancy. After about twenty minutes she knocked on the door of a house called the Rookery and asked the diminutive man who answered if he knew where a Nancy Belmont lived. He didn’t. Neither did the family a few doors down, although they said the name rang a bell. At the third house, the young woman said that she thought a Nancy Belmont was living in the white cottage on the outskirts of the village. She pointed a finger. ‘That way,’ she said. ‘I think.’
So Gaby walked away from the village and down a tiny rutted lane that led into the moors until she came across it. Dread settled on her, making her skin prickle and her heart beat faster. The house stood alone, set back from the track and in the middle of its own well-tended garden. It was small, more of a cottage really, pleasingly symmetrical, with white stone walls. Its upper windows were dark, but downstairs they were lit up, the curtains open. There was a Virginia creeper on one side of the grey door, and a small tree – Gaby had no idea what kind: she’d never been any good at identifying trees – in a pot at the other. A fire crackled and smouldered in the garden, and although Gaby couldn’t make out its flames behind the hedge she could see the orange glow. There were rosebushes, pruned back for the winter. Nancy had always loved yellow roses – yellow roses, peonies and sweet peas. She had grown herbs on the balcony of Stefan’s flat. Gaby crept forward, taking care not to make any noise, then stopped a few feet from the gate that led into the narrow strip of front garden, obscured by the bushes. She leant her cheek against the trunk of a stout tree, appalled by an idea that had struck her. What had made her assume that Nancy lived alone? At the idea of stumbling in on her with her family the blood rose in her cheeks. She pictured falling in through the door to several pairs of eyes turned on her inquiringly, and Nancy’s appraising, contemptuous stare.
But as she was thinking this, a figure moved into one of the illuminated downstairs windows. Gaby gasped, her hand going automatically to her mouth, and shrank back. She felt dizzy with shock. Nancy was standing at the window, just a few feet from her. For a suspended moment Gaby thought she must be staring out at her. But, no, she was looking down at something, and Gaby realized she was in her kitchen, standing at a work surface, mixing something in a large bowl. Her movements were unhurried, and Gaby remembered how everything that Nancy did had always seemed considered. It used to be relaxing just watching her wash up – the way she cleared surfaces in advance, filled the sink with hot water, started with the cutlery and glasses, then moved on to dishes and pans, and how she would rinse the sink afterwards, rubbing the taps with a cloth to make them gleam. She was working with the same calm purpose now, and Gaby saw that she was kneading the dough she had made, pushing her fists into its elastic surface. The light was shining on her so that it was like watching her on a large screen, her face perfectly in focus, her expression clear.
Gaby couldn’t move. She crouched in the shadows, noticing every flicker that crossed Nancy’s features. Every so often, she moved away from the window and back into the darkness, but then returned. Her face seemed thinner than Gaby remembered, but she still held herself upright.
She moved away from the window once more, but this time she didn’t return. Instead, a side door opened and she walked into the garden, wiping her hands on the apron she was wearing. She stood by the fire, bending to pick up sticks that had fallen from the pile and throw them back on to the blaze. Then she walked out to the shadows cast by the tree that stood by the low drystone wall marking the garden’s boundaries, where she reached into its branches. Gaby realized she was picking apples, twisting them by their stalks to test their ripeness and gathering them in the folds of her apron. When she had enough she walked back into the house, pulling the door shut. Then she was at the window again, this time peeling the apples.
Gaby stood up straight and drew a deep breath. Without giving herself time to think or change her mind, she walked briskly to the gate, rubbing her hands to keep them warm; and opened it, at the same time lifting her eyes to the kitchen window. Nancy was no longer standing there, and now smoke was coming from the chimney. Gaby marched to the front door, pushed the bell and rapped the iron knocker violently several times. ‘Right,’ she muttered fiercely, under her breath. ‘Now we’ll see.’
She was filled with the anger that had been lying like dry tinder for years and now had been lit.
Footsteps echoed inside the house. The door opened.
Seven
The two women stood face to face, just a few inches between them. Nancy was motionless, her eyes narrowed as if she was nerving herself for a sharp burst of pain. Gaby felt rather than saw a shiver pass through her. Then she nodded, as if she’d been expecting Gaby to arrive.
‘Surprise!’ yelled Gaby, in a bellicose manner.
‘It is,’ said Nancy, drily, still not moving. ‘But I might have known you’d find me in the end.’ Such a smile lit her face, warming her eyes, that for a moment Gaby forgot they were strangers. Then it faded and her face became wary once more.
‘Your house doesn’t look as if the flood damaged it,’ Gaby said, fiercely polite. ‘I suppose it’s far enough away from the river, is it?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Nancy’s eyes seemed to bulge in her face. ‘You’ve come to ask me about the flood?’
‘Well, no, obviously not. That would be truly mad. I’ve come to tell you that –’ Her voice was harsh and cracked. No, that was wrong. She tried again, standing stiffly to attention and swallowing hard before she spoke. ‘For a long time I have very much needed you to know that you –’ Then she stopped, feeling the words clog in her throat and her shoulders begin to shake. ‘Oh, bugger.’ She gulped, rubbing her sleeve over her face to mop up the tears. ‘I can’t stop crying today. This isn’t going the way I’d planned it.’
Nancy gave a little snort of laughter. ‘You haven’t changed a bit. I would have known you anywhere.’ She stood back. ‘You’d better
come in, now that you’re here.’
Gaby, still weeping, shuffled into a small hall with wooden floorboards and a large mirror on one wall, and Nancy closed the door behind her. Her sobs gradually subsided, until she was being shaken by the occasional spasm. Nancy stood beside her, saying nothing, not trying to comfort or hurry her.
‘Sorry,’ Gaby said at last, dragging the back of her hand across her snotty face, then pushing her bedraggled hair behind her ears.
‘Do you want to wash your face, clean up?’
‘What? Why? But I guess that’s a good idea. It’s been a long day.’
‘It’s in there. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re done.’
‘Yes. OK.’
Gaby locked the door and leant against it, trying to get her breathing to return to normal. Then she took off her jacket, letting it drop to the floor, and tightened the belt on her skirt. She took a resigned breath, and examined herself in the small looking-glass over the sink. Her hair was damp and hopelessly tangled, like a sodden nest of vipers; her freckles stood out in blotches in her peaky, smeared face. Mascara was smudged under both eyes; there was mud on her chin and a large streak of green running down her cheek, presumably from where she’d leant against a tree outside the house. And she smelt a bit like a dog that had been out in the rain.
‘Oh dear me,’ she said. ‘What a terrible sight.’ A giggle rose in her, hurting her throat and threatening to turn into another sob. She ran hot water into the basin, cupped her hands in it, and scooped it over her dirty face. Then she rummaged in her bag for a brush, but could find only a small plastic comb, which she tugged through the knots, her eyes stinging, until it snapped in her hair and she had to prise it loose. She put on some lipstick, but the effect wasn’t what she had hoped for – it made her look more rather than less unkempt – then sprayed perfume liberally all over herself. Her blisters were throbbing now, and she loosened her sandals and looked down at her raw, mucky feet, with chipped orange varnish on the toenails. She was a mess, no doubt about it, top to tail.
Oh, well, she thought, and squared her shoulders, giving a last defiant glance into the mirror before opening the door.
The kitchen lay off the hallway and was clearly the biggest room in the house. On one side were the cooker and hob, the fridge and the scrubbed wooden work surfaces, and it was here that Gaby had seen Nancy standing. Apple peel was curled in the top of a plastic bowl, ready for the compost, and on a large wooden board a clean white cloth lay over the top of what must have been the dough. Everything was austere and absurdly neat, like an illustration from some fifties magazine. Racks of spices – alphabetically ordered, Gaby noted with horror – and bottles of oils, vinegar and seasoning stood next to the hob. There was a small shelf lined with cookery books. Knives (in order of size, thought Gaby, once more seized by the urge to laugh) were stuck on a magnetic strip. The surfaces gleamed and the lighting was very bright, as if the kitchen was Nancy’s laboratory. She thought of their kitchen at home, which, despite Connor’s best efforts, was shambolic – drawers stuffed with bizarre cooking implements, leaflets and birthday-cake candles; shelves tottering with jars, chipped bowls, lids off lost Tupperware and discarded bills; work surfaces that were generally strewn with unkitchenly items (books, earrings and necklaces in bright heaps, towels, sunglasses, Ethan’s piano music, a camera, a clothes brush, a T-shirt or two, a bit of makeup perhaps, holiday brochures …); a fridge that Connor cleaned once a month, his mouth pursed in disapproval, but which at all other times heaved with food past its eat-by date, bowls of leftovers covered with clingfilm, pushed to the back and forgotten, several half-consumed tins of sweetcorn or tuna and bottles of milk. Gaby remembered one time – Connor had been away at a conference or something – when she and Ethan had eaten their supper standing in front of the open fridge, simply pulling out items of food at random (a bowl of stewed apples, fresh anchovies, a hunk of chorizo) and eating them there and then. Ethan had stuffed several olives into his mouth and washed them down with a liquid yoghurt; she had taken a large bite out of a red pepper and posted a piece of goat’s cheese after it, then pulled the tab on a can of beer.
At the other end of the room, down a couple of steps, the light was more muted and a fire burnt in a small grate, a sagging sofa to one side of it and, under the second window, an old, rickety table, painted white, with two chairs pulled up at it and a bowl of dog-roses in the middle. On one wall there was a framed black-and-white photograph of the sea, with sun splashing light on to its surface. Gaby took all of this in, and at the same time she was aware of Nancy. She was dressed in a pair of old jeans and wore an oat-coloured pullover with white paint on one sleeve; her short hair was brushed behind her ears. No earrings, no bangles, no makeup. She was stirring apples in a pan, a glass of red wine at hand, and there was the smell of cloves in the air, with woodsmoke.
‘You definitely do live on your own,’ Gaby said. ‘Don’t you sometimes feel like running amok?’
‘I’ve lived on my own for years,’ said Nancy, not bothering to reply to the second question. ‘Do you want some wine?’
‘Yes.’
‘You look as if you could do with some food as well.’
‘Do I? In what way? Oh, never mind – I’m starving, actually.’
Nancy tipped some wine into a glass, then pulled open the fridge. ‘There are some left-over potatoes, and a bit of gravy. How about that?’
‘Like being back at school,’ said Gaby, rudely. She was aware of getting the tone all wrong, hitting the wrong note, being puerile, but she had no idea how to behave or what to say. She had always thought that when at last she saw Nancy everything she had stored up would be released and the words would pour out; she would shout and cry and feel purged. But something about Nancy’s gravity and self-possession thwarted her. She felt clumsy, yet volatile – like a reactive chemical that was about to change its state dramatically. Would she shift from solid to liquid, or liquid to gas – or even gas to a spitting explosion?
‘Here. Do you want me to heat it?’
‘No. It’s fine like this.’
Gaby chopped the potatoes into small chunks and mashed the gravy into them. Without bothering to sit down, she forked the mixture into her mouth ravenously, interspersed with gulps of wine. She didn’t try to speak until she had finished.
‘I took Ethan to university today,’ she said at last. ‘Big day. I hadn’t realized how painful it was going to be.’ She glared belligerently at Nancy to stop herself weeping; she felt as though there was a sea of tears inside her. ‘I dropped him off and said goodbye and for a few minutes I thought I couldn’t bear it; I literally thought I’d break into little bits because it hurt so badly. All that part of my life over, and why didn’t I know how precious it was? Then I got on to a train to Liskeard. I hadn’t known I was going to do it. It hadn’t occurred to me. I thought I was going to go home, and all of a sudden there I was on a train going west.’
‘How is Ethan?’ asked Nancy.
‘He’s your non-godson.’
‘I didn’t say who, I said how.’
‘I know, I know. I was just reacting like that because you were trying to steer it all back to safe ground and I don’t want to be on safe ground – and, anyway, there isn’t any safe ground between us. Nothing’s solid.’
Gaby took another large mouthful of wine. This was better. She was losing the horrible tight feeling and getting into her stride. ‘Ethan’s fine, if you really want to know, which presumably you don’t, or only in a mildly curious way, or you would have found out before. He’s a sweet-heart, actually.’ She heard her voice growing maudlin. ‘My lovely only child.’
‘Only?’
‘Yes. You thought there’d be others?’
‘I – well, I probably just assumed you and Connor would have lots.’
‘Happy families. No. I had miscarriages instead of children.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I used to think it was my fault because of how I
was after Ethan – as if my mind and body were in a conspiracy against me and knew I wasn’t fit to be a mother. Well, that was then. And before you ask, Connor’s fine too. OK? And so’s Stefan. Stains on his tie when he wears one and he carries everything around in split plastic bags and forgets where he’s parked his car, forgets his own birthday, even – but his students adore him. Well, as you once said to me and have probably forgotten but I haven’t, he’s adorable. Anyway, he’s fine. So we’ve got that out of the way.’
‘Is he –?’
‘Married? Nope.’
‘Do you want some fruit?’
‘What? Fruit? No. I’d like some more wine, though. I seem to have finished the glass without noticing – you haven’t. Yours is still half full, or should that be half empty? Anyway, the point is that you’re sipping and I’m gulping, and you’re saying a few cautious words at a time – most of them questions, by the way – and I’m talking nineteen to the dozen. You should really drink more quickly on an evening like this. It’d be better if we were both half sloshed.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘There you are! Do I think so? Yes, I think so. I haven’t come here to have a polite conversation with you, filling you in on the headlines of what’s been happening since we last met.’
‘So why have you come, Gaby?’
It was the first time Nancy had used her name; hearing it, Gaby felt the atmosphere change. Even the light in the room seemed to soften round the two women, and for a moment they both stood in silence, simply looking at each other’s older faces; lines that hadn’t been there before marking the years that they’d both missed.
‘Let’s sit down,’ Gaby said, taking her wine and moving over to the sofa, where she curled up with her bare, grimy feet tucked under her. Nancy followed with the bottle.
The Moment You Were Gone Page 9
