Lifesaver

by Voss, Louise

  ‘I really hope you two will be happy together,’ I said, fishing my Timberlands out of the bottom of his wardrobe, still flaking dried mud from a walk in the country with him and Max. Even opening the wardrobe door felt intrusive. ‘You deserve to be happy.’ I did mean it, but I sounded totally insincere, as if I was just trying to overcompensate for what I’d said on the towpath.

  Adam sat down on the bed. ‘Happy,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. Well. I suppose I could be happy, even when I feel like my heart belongs to someone else.’ He grabbed my hand and pulled me down next him. ‘Oh Anna, why did you - ?’

  I burst into tears, still clutching my boots, rocking back and forwards with the pain of mistakes, of wrong decisions and regrets. ‘I’m sorry, I’m really really sorry.’

  Adam stroked my hair. ‘Don’t cry.’ He pushed me gently down onto my back and kissed me, the mattress yielding under our weight. ‘One last kiss,’ he said, kissing away the tears which were dripping an uneven path into my ears.

  Our tongues met, salty and passionate, and I felt a pang of indecision. Perhaps I ought to be fighting harder for him, begging him to give us a chance - but no, Adam wasn’t mine any longer. Or rather, never had been.

  From Max’s bedroom came the sound of a tinny little keyboard, pre-programmed to play ‘She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain,’ very fast. I sat up, pushing Adam off me. I badly needed to blow my nose, and besides, if I’d stayed there kissing Adam, I knew I would just have wanted to take off all my clothes and get into bed with him. Then I’d never have left.

  ‘I think that’s everything,’ I said, picking up the boots, a jogging bra, and a British Airways travel kit which I’d kept in the bathroom. I noticed the boots’ treads had disgorged narrow rectangles of dried mud all over the carpet, and I churlishly hoped it would annoy Marilyn. ‘I’ll leave you Lil’s address, so if you find anything else, could you send it on?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Adam miserably, sitting up and running a hand through his hair.

  I tucked my stuff under my arm, and plucked a tissue from the box on the mantelpiece. It felt wrong, like taking liberties in a stranger’s house. I blew my nose, and lobbed the tissue in the wastepaper basket. One of Max’s drawings was in there, scrunched up, and I felt angry with Marilyn. I’d never thrown away anything that Max drew or stuck or made, however cursory the effort had been—I had a thick folder of it all at the flat. The maps we’d done together when he got ill that time were my favourites, though. The ‘naps’.

  ‘Max,’ I called, outside his bedroom door. ‘I’m leaving now, darling. Will you come and kiss me goodbye?’

  Hold it together, Anna, just for a while longer. I hoped my eyes weren’t red from the last fit of crying. There was silence in the room.

  ‘Max? Please?’ I didn’t feel I could enter. I was a stranger again.

  I heard a shuffling from inside, then the drag of the door over the carpet. Max appeared, clutching Spesh under one arm and a football under the other. He hadn’t switched off his keyboard, for it was still parping an allegro version of ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’.

  He thrust Spesh at me, his mouth turned down at the corners. I kissed the matted fur of Spesh’s nose. ‘Bye then, Spesh,’ I said, trying to be jolly. ‘Look after Max for me.’

  ‘No, Anna, you can keep him.’

  My mouth fell open, and from inside Adam’s bedroom, I heard an exclamation of surprise. Adam appeared next to me. ‘You’re giving Spesh to Anna?’

  ‘I want her to have him, Daddy. He’s my most favourite thing, that’s why,’ said Max matter-of-factly, tears gleaming in his eyes.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said, trying to give him back. ‘Oh Max, not your Spesh.’

  ‘Don’t you like him?’

  ‘I love him. I love you. I—I know how precious he is to you, that’s all. You’d miss him so much!’

  ‘I’m going to miss you more, Anna,’ said Max, so grown up that I could picture him as an adult, same eyes, deep voice, bristles, big feet…reaking girls’ hearts left right and centre, just like my heart was breaking then.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. But I can visit him when I come for sleepovers, can’t I?’

  ‘Definitely.’ I looked at Adam for confirmation, and he nodded and ruffled Max’s hair. ‘Baby, that’s so kind of you. I’m sure Anna will love looking after Spesh.’

  ‘I’ll think of you every single time I look at him,’ I managed tight-throatedly. ‘Thank you so much.’

  I dropped my little bundle of possessions on the carpet—now including Max’s treasured toy - knelt down, and Max ran into my arms. Once more, Adam walked away, and I thought, right, now I really do have to go. Stringing it out is just making it harder.

  Just then, we heard the sound of a key in the front door, followed by the rustle of plastic carrier bags. Max ripped himself away from me and bounded down the stairs, still holding the football. ‘Mummy, mummy, guess what? My tooth comed out!’ he called, and I was left on the landing, my arms empty and my womb aching.

  I didn’t see Max again. When I left the house shortly afterwards, he was kicking the ball about in the garden with Marilyn. Through the open back door, I heard him excitedly speculating about whether the tooth fairy would fly or walk into his bedroom, and how much he’d get for his tooth. He appeared to have forgotten that I was going.

  It was better that way.

  Chapter 36

  I drove home that same afternoon, very slowly, numb with sorrow and on a cocktail of Day Nurse, Strepsils and vitamin C tablets. All the goodbyes had really taken it out of me, and I felt weak as a kitten. Accelerating shakily away from Wealton with Spesh in the passenger seat, I felt a strange, hollow sensation of loss and regret; a cross between bereavement, and the feeling one got after a really good holiday; leaving in the knowledge that you would most likely never see that place or those people again. Even though Adam said that I could still see Max, I sensed that it might easily not happen—and that in the long run it might be best for all concerned if it didn’t.

  I’d left a note for Dora, my landlady, giving a month’s notice on the flat, and I knew I’d have to go down again with a transit van to move my stuff out—but I wasn’t sure that I’d have been able to see Max and Adam again so soon. Or rather, to see Marilyn reinstalled in full flow as Mother and Wife.

  I couldn’t face going to Lil’s straight away, so I went home first, planning to unpack the things I’d brought back with me, but not having the energy to do any more than crawl into another cold empty bed, feeling like a nomad. A nauseous nomad, I thought, as ten minutes later I had to dash for the bathroom, my insides churning afresh. Perhaps it was just life which was making me sick: sick of the deception, the lack of stability, the house built on sand. It felt like the tide had come in, and fast. Well, it was done now. No more Max or Adam or escapism. The rest of my life started here. It felt horrible.

  I put on my nightdress and was about to climb back into bed, wrung out and just wanting sleep, when the doorbell rang. I ignored it. It rang again. I was plagued by people who kept their fingers on the buzzer, it seemed. I trudged downstairs, sighing heavily.

  I opened the door, hanging on to it for support, expecting a delivery or perhaps Vicky or Lil—but a strange man was standing there, squinting uncertainly at me in my tatty nylon Tigger nightdress. Ken hated that nightdress with a vengeance. I’d bought it for £5.99 in a market, to wear after Holly was born, figuring that it didn’t matter if it got covered with milk and blood or whatever, I could chuck it away afterwards. But in the end I hadn’t been able to part with it. It was all bobbly, and so static that I gave Ken electric shocks when I wore it in bed. He used to say that it was made of some kind of special sex-repelling fabric; and I used to laugh, even while privately thinking that Ken didn’t need any special sex-repellent, he seemed to be perfectly repelled by me without any assistance.

  ‘Anna?’

  The man was in his mid-sixties, with a large belly and pale grey h
air, swept over his forehead in a vaguely familiar David Soul-esque style. He seemed to know me, and I frowned at him.

  ‘Really sorry to land on you unannounced. After twenty years.’ Suddenly he grinned, and looked almost rakish. The penny dropped.

  ‘Greg? Good grief, is that really you? I didn’t recognise you.’ I felt too wrecked to summon up anything other than astonishment, but he didn’t seem perturbed by my lack of enthusiasm. He spread his arms wide, but I didn’t move.

  Greg, my would-be deflowerer. Dad’s friend Greg, the catalyst for me causing Dad’s heart attack. Greg, who I really hadn’t ever wanted to see again, after the funeral. Thank heavens I hadn’t run away with him, I thought. Whatever other sort of a mess I’d made of my life, at least it hadn’t included a failed marriage to Greg.

  ‘Yes, it’s really me! I bumped into your brother behind the leather goods counter of John Lewis in Oxford Street, and he gave me your address—did he not tell you? Nice outfit, by the way.’

  He nodded into my cleavage, and I pulled the front of the nightdress up to cover my chest better, mentally cursing my brother.

  ‘Has he worked there long?’

  ‘Um. No. A few weeks. He just got back from six months away travelling round Europe.’

  ‘Isn’t he married, then? I did ask him, but he acted like I’d said something funny—bad divorce, was it? Needed to get away for a bit?’

  ‘No. He’s gay.’

  Greg’s jaw dropped, so far that I could see all the crowns and fillings cluttering up his mouth, flashing gaudy brightness among his grey teeth.

  ‘Gay? As in, a homo? He can’t be! Didn’t he have that nice little girlfriend when he was a kid?’

  I sighed. This, I could have done without. ‘Yes, he had girlfriends. He didn’t come out until he was twenty five. He’s got a very nice boyfriend now.’

  Greg appeared to find this news utterly earth-shattering. He shook his head. ‘A homo! Little Oliver…ho’d have thought…ell, actually, it does kind of make sense—but still, what would your dad have said?’

  ‘I’m sure Dad would have just wanted Olly to be happy, like Mum and I did,’ I said stiffly, thinking it very bizarre to be standing on the doorstep discussing Olly’s sexual proclivities in my Tigger nightie, my entire life turned upside down.

  ‘Right. Well. Anyway. I didn’t come over to ask you about your brother. I need to talk to you,’ he said, his face in creases of seriousness.

  Good grief, I thought, now what? ‘Oh?’ I said cagily. ‘What about?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  I hesitated. ‘It’s not a great time—I’ve got a ‘flu bug, and I feel horrible.’

  He looked me up and down again. ‘Yes, you do look rough, don’t you?’ he said cheerfully, and I was affronted. He could talk, with his beer gut and peppery stubble. He’d grown old-man ears, with hair sprouting out of them and everything; and the dimple in his chin which had been so cute twenty years ago now seemed angry, as if someone had been conducting regular and rather careless excavations in there with a screwdriver. I shuddered at the thought of what we used to get up to on my parents’ kitchen floor. It was staggering, to think I’d been so impressed by a pair of jeans and Dunlop Green Flashes.

  I stood aside to let him in, and reluctantly ushered him into the kitchen. Flicking on the kettle, I gestured for him to sit down on one of the stools at the counter. He obeyed, his large bottom swallowing up the stool’s surface; which reminded me of Peter, that time he’d come over to have a go at me about falling out with Vicky. I would have to ring Vicky and see Crystal, soon, I thought guiltily. That day at the spa had been months ago, and since then we’d drifted even further apart—so far that I wasn’t even sure if our friendship was redeemable. I hadn’t wanted to get in touch in case she’d seen through my deceptions, and I was pretty sure she’d been keeping her distance so as not to rub my nose in her pregnancy. She’d nearly be due by now, I thought, with a pang like a small contraction.

  I waited for Greg to extract his pack of Silk Cut, light up, and then ask if I minded, as had been his wont, but his hands remained on the counter in front of him, fidgeting and restless. I remembered those hands, the way they used to cup my breasts and slide around my waist. They were still a smoker’s hands; the lump on the index finger hardened into a nicotine yellow callous. I felt queasy again.

  ‘Not smoking any more?’ I asked.

  His face settled into a smug expression. ‘Two and a half years since I last had a fag,’ he said proudly. ‘Gave it up when I gave up the booze.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said politely. ‘Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Tea, please love. Three sugars.’

  I wondered if he’d always been this…ough. If Dad and he would still have been friends. Now I looked back, Mum and Dad’s friendship with him and Jeanette had been odd, really. They hadn’t had much in common. Mum liked gardening, Jeanette liked Bingo. Dad was into golf, and Greg played snooker. There had definitely been a touch of the Abigail’s Party about their little set-up; the cosy nights in drinking sickly Seventies drinks and handing round the nibbles. Paper tablecloths, cheesecloth dresses, kipper ties. I wondered what the attraction had been. We’d had plenty of other neighbours that Mum and Dad could have bonded with. Although that wasn’t to say they would have lacked the Broiderie Anglaise and bad ties…/span>

  I remembered, with shame, the way I’d seduced him: leading him on, then letting him believe he was making the first move. It seemed so sleazy, when at the time I’d kidded myself it was romantic and passionate. I looked at him, at the grizzled mass of chest hair poking out from his v-necked shirt, and thought, oh the mistakes we make in our youth… And then I remembered my current predicament and thought, oh the mistakes we make as adults.

  It was all Greg’s fault, I decided, viciously throwing two teabags into mugs as the kettle danced to the boil. If he hadn’t told Dad about me and him, Dad wouldn’t have keeled over and died; of that I was certain. If Dad hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have felt quite so fearful for Max’s continuing survival—losing Holly was bad enough, but the thought of my bone marrow donation failing Max had been horrendous, and of Adam knowing. Feeling responsible for three deaths. But that meant that I’d lied to Adam, and now I’d lost him.

  ‘So how’s things with you, Anna?’ he asked, staring at the marble surface of our kitchen counter as if he wanted nothing more than not to hear the answer. ‘Apart from the ‘flu, I mean.’

  ‘Great,’ I said, practically banging his tea down in front of him, ungraciously shoving over the sugar bowl. ‘Just great. My life is a total…’ I was going to say “breeze”, but unaccountably what came out was ‘…disaster.’

  ‘My life is a total disaster,’ I repeated, a catch in my voice. To give him credit, Greg did look at me with concern.

  ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, sliding on to the stool next to him. ‘You don’t need to hear all my problems—and to be honest, I don’t really want to tell them to you. I’m just feeling a bit low at the moment, what with this bug. You’ve just happened to turn up at the wrong time, that’s all. I’ll be fine.’

  He patted my shoulder sympathetically, and I managed to swallow down the tears pricking my eyes at the realization that I really had lost Adam and Max.

  ‘So!’ Greg said brightly. ‘I hear you’re an actress now—that’s great. That’s what you always wanted to be, wasn’t it? I remember coming to see you in that school play that time. Weird sort of thing, about gangsters, weren’t it? It had a funny name.’

  ‘”The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui”,’ I said, managing to smile. ‘By Bertolt Brecht. I had the main part—Ui.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. Dead proud of you, I was. Wanted to boast to everyone that you were my bird—but obviously I couldn’t, you know?’

  I thought of Adam, how he’d never met any of my friends, or my family, and never would. Poor Adam—he’d been having an affair with me without even knowing it
. I was no better than a bigamist. No wonder he was shattered when I’d told him.

  Then I looked at a photograph on the bookshelf of Ken as a little boy, not much older than Max, holding up a large pike with more teeth than he had. That little boy had no idea he’d grow up and marry a woman who would cheat on him. I felt so sorry for both of them. They both deserved better than me.

  ‘How is Jeanette?’ I asked weakly.

  Greg shrugged. ‘Dunno. We divorced ten years back. She went off with the barman at the Bingo hall.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry. Were you upset?’

  He swiped a hand across his forehead. ‘Gutted. Devastated. Words can’t express…’ Where had that adoration for his wife been when he’d been trying to get into my knickers, I asked myself?

  ‘Did she ever know about us?’ I’d always wondered that. I assumed not, because otherwise my mother would probably also have known.

  ‘Yeah. I told her after your Dad’s funeral. After you’d gone off to drama college. I felt so bad about it all.’

  I looked at him in amazement. ‘Really? I don’t think she ever told my mum.’

  ‘No, she didn’t. She was a gem, that woman. I broke her heart, and still she was thinking of other people. She said, “Eileen’s been through enough. She just lost her husband. She doesn’t want to hear that her daughter’s been screwing a married man twice her age.”

  ‘But they were friends.’

  It was Greg’s turn to look at me. ‘Yeah, exactly. She didn’t want to give your mum any more grief. She never told a soul.’

  I felt a new respect for Jeanette, who I’d always secretly rather despised, with her loud floral tent dresses, eyebrows plucked to oblivion, and careful perms. It was such an incredibly juicy piece of gossip, especially when she was the injured party. I’d never have been able to keep it to myself, in her position.

  ‘We muddled on together, though she never really trusted me after that. Thought we was over it, to be honest, and then she met …Ricky.’ He spat the name out like a mouldy strawberry.

  Ken would never trust me again either, if I did tell him about Adam. I couldn’t tell him. I just couldn’t. I pushed away my mug of tea.