‘Yes. Absolutely. Goodness.’ A pain was sliding in and out of Vincent’s left temple, a needle puncturing and pushing, up to its hilt and then withdrawing. He rubbed the spot, aware of how the vein throbbed, as if there was too much blood in his head. ‘Splendid news indeed. And where, may I ask, is the victor of this great prize?’
Kat twirled out of the room, shouting to Eleanor.
Mrs Owens hung the mug back on its hook and folded the drying-up cloth into a padded rectangle. ‘Will you be wanting any more help today? There’s some cold meats for supper. A spot of salad.’ Grief, even in more straightforward circumstances took time, she reminded herself, even for men of God; even those men of God misguided enough to have burdened themselves with such pitifully unsuitable wives. The woman’s death was a shocker, of course. It was no way for anyone to die. The final verdict had been accidental death, but for weeks gossip and local papers had swirled with speculation, because of the alcohol content in her blood and the lack of a handbag or train ticket.
The cleaner stole another glance at the vicar’s big chiselled face, admiring the stoical strength that seemed to radiate from it, but wondering if, on some undetectable level, it masked a sense of release. Such a tragedy – especially for the two dear girls – but there was no denying (God forgive her) that the man was better off alone. All of Broughton thought so, it wasn’t just her.
‘They wanted lollies, but I’m afraid I said it would ruin their appetites.’
‘Quite right, Mrs Owens. Thank you. Cold meats. Splendid.’
‘So I’ll be off then. Till Friday.’
‘Till Friday. Exactly. Thank you… thank you.’ Vincent hurried into the hall to see her out, sensing, as ever, that his responses were inadequate, but lacking the wherewithal to improve on them.
He found Eleanor on the sofa with Kat, watching television. They were propped together like two rag dolls, pink-faced from the beach, their hair tangled and full of air. Kat had stoppered her mouth with her thumb as usual and was sucking rhythmically, her eyes half closed.
‘I gather congratulations are in order. Well done, Eleanor, well done indeed.’
‘Thanks Dad.’ Eleanor spoke softly, sheepishly, not looking at him.
‘You’re a clever girl.’ Vincent perched on the arm of the sofa and delivered a pat to the dark springy roof of her head. ‘And… and… Mum…’ The effort in the word was audible to all of them, an unwieldy mouthful, close to choking him. ‘Mum would be pleased too. Pleased and proud. Okay, Eleanor? Okay?’ His voice rose, as if he was asking himself the question as much as her.
‘Yup.’ Eleanor nodded, keeping her gaze on the telly. A man in a gorilla costume was trying to eat a banana but kept missing his mouth. ‘Miss Zaphron said she’s going to call you. She wants me to have extra lessons.’
‘Oh yes? And do you want extra lessons?’
Eleanor shrugged. It was impossible to relish the idea of more schoolwork, but the opportunity to escape her class definitely held some appeal. After her mother’s death, the taunts and paper pellets had stopped, but for the rest of term it was as if a bell jar had been lowered over her. She had been set apart, stared at, pitied, examined. ‘Miss Zaphron said maybe I’ll go to Oxford one day.’
‘Did she now?’ Vincent was watching the milky evening light fill the window. He found it impossible to envisage the end of the day, let alone the tunnel of six years that might or might not allow his parlous finances to stretch to the accommodation of his eldest daughter attending university. ‘Well, no harm in aiming high, I suppose.’
Eleanor, detecting the drift in his voice, the trace of what sounded like disapproval, returned her attention to the television. The volume was almost too low to hear, more of a drone. The gorilla was using his banana to point at the hands of a big clock.
Beside her, Kat suddenly plucked her thumb out of her mouth and sat up. ‘I want Mum,’ she wailed. ‘I want her. She shouldn’t have gone to the railway. She told us not to. So why did she?’
‘Mum is in heaven,’ said Eleanor grimly, not looking at their father. Unlike Kat, she had been able to pick up on some of the speculation. It had made it hard to think straight sometimes, even after Miss Zaphron had gently taken her to one side to explain that it meant nothing, that journalists, like people, made up stories just to seem interesting.
Vincent reached across Eleanor and picked Kat up, cradling her as she continued to sob, her arms and legs splaying out awkwardly, like a rangy pet. ‘God has reasons for everything and we must accept them.’ He sounded like he did when giving one of his grand sermons, as if he was speaking to the air rather than a person. They both had to attend church every Sunday now, always sitting with Mrs de Mowbray in the front row. ‘A bath before supper tonight,’ he added, in the same loud flat voice, ‘wash all that salt off. We’ll leave the water in for you, Eleanor.’
Kat had gone limp in his arms, not asleep, but like she had given up a fight. He carried her out of the room. As they went through the doorway, her head bobbed up over his shoulder, the tears dry smears on her cheeks, her eyes already fresh and sparkling. She locked her gaze onto Eleanor and shot her a secretive smile, like she knew she was being spoilt and was sorry about it.
12
July 2013 – Cape Town
Nick carefully peeled off his gloves, oily from the service he had given the lawnmower, and went into the kitchen. The grass hadn’t needed a cut, but he had given it one anyway, wanting the excuse of fresh air. Their gardener, Joseph, would be put out, but there were plenty of other things for the man to get on with.
He poured a tumbler of water and ice from their big American fridge-freezer and watched the wind lift the edges of the pool cover as he drank. It was a grey Saturday afternoon in early July and Donna and the girls were shopping before their usual weekend ride at their grandparents, so he had the luxury of at least two more hours to himself.
He drank a second glass of water and then stowed the gloves at the back of the cloakroom shelf, sufficiently buried, he hoped, to prevent complaint. Donna did not like dirt in the house of any kind. She probably wouldn’t be too pleased that he had mowed the grass either, since Joseph’s surliness would fall on her.
Under the shower, Nick slapped on the bodywash with such carelessness that a glob of the stuff got in his eye and he had to soak it with a cold flannel. He leant against the tiled wall with both hands as the stinging subsided, letting the shower water bounce off his back.
Once dry and dressed, he fetched a beer from the fridge and took it back upstairs, settling himself on the floor beside the ever-growing stack of medical journals that lived under his bedside table. Nick worked through the journals quickly and intently, folding the occasional page that contained anything of significance and deftly hurling the rest into the bedroom’s large metal wastepaper basket. When his bottle was empty, he threw that in too, landing it squarely in the middle of the papers. Unplugging his laptop, charging next to the bed, he then set to making notes on the pages he had turned down. A reward would be another beer, he told himself, but quickly growing so absorbed that he forgot.
When his backside grew numb, he shifted onto the bed to finish up, and then spent a few minutes googling fast-track teacher-training courses in the UK, pursuing a germ of an idea that had lately taken hold.
Only after that did he succumb to the temptation to scroll to the most recent cluster of emails from Kat. Three months in and they had covered so many subjects that Nick would have struggled to list even half of them. Somehow, through it all, they had stuck to her rules about what was out of bounds, in spite of Nick finding it a matter of growing frustration. A person and their views about life were one. To insist on keeping the two so separate had begun to feel not only weird, but increasingly impossible.
But then, that week, there had been an abrupt change of tack from Kat herself and Nick was still trying to get his head round it. The trigger had been a passing reference he had made to the loneliness of his mother since the sudden
death of his father three years before. Half-expecting to be told off – it was a personal piece of information, after all – he had instead found himself reading the first missive that had clearly come straight from Kat’s heart, blasting all her blessed boundaries to smithereens.
Dearest Nick,
I am so sorry for the loss of your father. Grief can be such a monster. If there is one thing in the world I understand, it’s that. Though I wish it were otherwise. People we love are taken away from us, and each time is worse than the last. They say time ‘heals’, but it doesn’t really. All that happens is that one learns to live with the sadness. I do not remember my mother at all well – I think a part of me has tried not to – but she is there nonetheless; or rather, her absence is there.
I am sorry your mother is now struggling on her own. I was never particularly close to my father, but it still pains me to think back to the state of lockdown he went into after Mum died, basically shutting out everybody and everything but God. He has Alzheimer’s now – which I fear is simply another way to lose someone, even worse in many respects. I do visit him, of course, but I can’t say I like it. In fact I bloody loathe it. Which no doubt makes me a terrible person.
Here’s a UK weather report by way of a cheery change of subject: Rain today and more forecast for tomorrow. I bet you don’t miss English summers. X
Nick had written back.
You are not a terrible person and of course I had not forgotten about your mother.
For you and Eleanor to lose her when you were so young, let alone in such circumstances, must have been unspeakable. It is one of several things that, looking back, I wonder we didn’t talk about more. But then – MENTIONING THE PAST ALERT – our relationship was a total fuck-up from the start, wasn’t it? We were never right for each other. I could tell I irritated the hell out of you! When we split I knew it was the right thing.
Trust me, I’m not trying to get ‘heavy’ here or anything. For the record, I am happily married, as I am sure you are too. It is purely this new friendship of ours that I am enjoying. Friendship. Dare I say that maybe that was what was lacking between us before!
Very enjoyable weather report, by the way. Perhaps you could manage a few updates on the Test Match next time? Assessment of form, views on the Ozzie batting order, some stats and predictions, that sort of thing… nothing too taxing.
Nick x
Several days had passed before she replied, with an email that once again surprised him, but this time for being so incoherent.
Can’t do cricket. Hate cricket.
As to ‘friendship’, dunno. dunno anything, except that in ‘real’ life conversations are hard. god it’s depressing. life is so fucking short. regrets about crossed wires AFTER death are just POINTLESS… I KNOW that. yet it doesn’t make being open and honest with those we love while they are alive any easier…
Shit. BAD day.
Expectations of happiness are the problem I think. as in, We all believe we have the right to be happy. Ha ha.
Sorry. difficult stuff going on here. not at my best. forgive me
What ‘difficult stuff’’? Nick had asked at once, intrigued but also now faintly concerned. Maybe I can help?
Her reply was the most recent he had received.
There are some things no one can help with. I shouldn’t have said anything. Breaking my own rules is despicable. Pathetic. I am pathetic. Trust me, sharing confidences would lead nowhere good, for either of us.
I do trust you, Nick had replied, curiosity and desperation mounting, but then what are friends for other than sharing problems?
There had been nothing since.
Nick tipped his head back among the bed’s many scatter cushions and closed his eyes, deflated at having reached the end. He had been reading their exchanges almost like a page-turning book, he realised, as if he did not know what might happen next. Which he sort of didn’t. Because who knew what was round the corner? That something in her life was clearly going very wrong only made the suspense worse.
Downstairs, a window shutter started banging in the evening breeze, the sitting room one, Nick guessed, which had a loose hook. He checked his watch. There was still time to write again, come up with something reassuring. And yet how impossible to offer reassurance to someone without having a clue what the matter was. Being funny was the safest bet, he decided, starting to type. She must not feel harried or anxious. He must make sure he nailed that above all things.
Subject: Status Report
From: [email protected]
Date: 5/7/13
To: [email protected]
Dear Kat,
You will no doubt be thrilled and fascinated to hear that I have now reached the sort of age where pushing a lawnmower makes me happy. Indeed, that is how I have spent a large portion of my afternoon. It wipes me out too, unfortunately – aching muscles, etc. In fact, instead of writing this email, I should probably be taking a nap. By the way, I also like tinkering with machines these days, especially lawnmowers. I’ll be polishing my hubcaps next…
He continued in a similar fashion for a while before signing off with the jokey request for a passport photograph. So I can see the toll the years have taken on you in their worst light. Why is it that passport photographs make us all look like criminals???
He sent the email on its way and set off to attend to the flapping shutter, only to get halfway downstairs and race back up again when his ears caught the faint ping of a new message.
Thank you for the gardening/health report. So very detailed. By some miracle, I even managed to stay awake while reading it. I assume you soak your false teeth in bleach?
No to the photograph.
Nick started to write back at once, delighted to have caught her in front of a screen. And she had cheered up, a little. He had cheered her up.
To: [email protected]
Great to hear back so quickly. You are very strict with your strictures, did you know that?
What about sending me three words to describe yourself instead then. As you are now. A measly THREE words. Surely that’s not too much to ask?
To: [email protected]
No. Not three words and not ten. No one ever sees themselves as they are. It is an impossible, as well as unreasonable, request.
To: [email protected]
Such a response can only come from someone who has learnt to see themselves very clearly.
But perhaps I could give you a kick-start. Based on my (albeit limited) observations over the last three months, I would humbly suggest that you are:
1.OBSTINATE.
2.STRICT.
3.???
That only leaves you needing to find one more word.
As for me, you can be assured of total and thoroughly scientific objectivity when I offer the following (current problems of sleepiness and muscle ache notwithstanding)
1. Not too fat (yet).
2. Not too grey (yet).
3. Very accommodating to strict people.
There. A fully rounded, current picture of Yours Truly. (And yes, I am aware I have used phrases rather than single words in my self-portrait, but it is my game and so I can do as I choose.)
Your turn.
One more word.
And I am going to have to hurry you, a) because I am on tenterhooks, b) my family will soon be returning from my in-laws.
A good ten minutes passed. Nick was starting to despair when his inbox lit up.
To: [email protected]
Deceitful. That is my third word.
This needs to stop.
Sorry. But it does.
To: [email protected]
What??? You are completely overreacting. We have done nothing except exchange a few thoughts across the airwaves. Where’s the harm in that?
To: [email protected]
No, Nick. This is over.
I am sorry. I had no idea I would do this today. Though, i
f I am honest, I have known from the beginning that it would have to be done.
It’s my fault, not yours. I should never have written back.
I am sorry. Take care. Forgive me. I have very much enjoyed our emails.
The slam of the front door made Nick start. He had forgotten to keep an eye on the time, forgotten everything. As he closed the laptop, he heard Donna calling out about the flapping shutter. He reached the landing in time to catch Natalie wrestling her way through the door with a shopping bag over one shoulder and carrying the saddle with the girth that was always snapping. On seeing him, she pulled a face that told him the afternoon had not been without its dramas.
‘There you are,’ said Donna in an exasperated voice, appearing at her side, ‘the house was so dark and quiet, I thought you’d been kidnapped. And what’s wrong with that bloody window?’
‘I was on my way to fix it. It just needs a screwdriver.’
Nick hurried to relieve his daughter of the saddle and headed towards the utility room. He was aware of having to work hard to be himself, of acting as they would all expect him to act. And yet what he had written to Kat was true, he reminded himself. They had nothing to feel guilty about. They had exchanged words on a screen; random ideas about the world – about life, nature, current affairs, music, sport, the weather, tennis. It had been nothing. And now she had ended it anyway.
Later that night, leaving Donna under her eye-mask and with her earplugs in, he broke one of his own cardinal rules and checked his laptop. Finding no further word from Kat, he held down the delete button until their entire correspondence was eradicated. Out of sight, out of mind. It was a shame, but done with. He tiptoed back to bed, breathing deeply till his pounding heart had settled.
Good Girls Page 11
