When she got home Alastair was sitting in the kitchen: Alastair who enjoyed conversation and confidences, the closest thing Olivia had to a daughter. She felt a rush of pleasure. The suggestion of favouritism usually made her feel guilty, but today she let it linger, setting it beside the memory of Georgie and Clive. She hoped that adolescent self-absorption had stopped the boys spotting anything amiss during her recent vicissitudes, but she’d noticed – thought she’d noticed – Alastair being more than usually solicitous lately, in his low-key way, and she was grateful for his consideration and his tact.
“Boiler’s broken in the Year Eleven block,” Alastair said cheerfully. “They sent us home. Where’ve you been?”
“Playing carols at the day centre.”
“Ah – community service among the crumblies.”
“Shush.” Olivia batted at him with the glove she’d just pulled off. “Shall we have some lunch?”
Alastair took bowls and spoons out of the cupboard while Olivia heated up soup.
“A strange thing happened this morning,” she said. “You know Georgie, the old lady at the day centre?”
“The one whose family you’ve been looking up?”
“Her nephew came to see her today.”
“Was she pleased to see him?”
The same question as Shirley. The obvious question.
“I’m not really sure. It was hardly a joyous reconciliation, but she didn’t reject him outright.”
“Had she met him before?” Alastair had laid the lunch things on the table and now he sat down, rocking the chair backwards with his long legs.
Olivia shook her head. “Didn’t even know he existed.”
“It must be odd to have no family.”
“Georgie might have been better off without a family,” Olivia said, “considering what they did to her.”
Alastair shrugged, almost overbalanced, righted himself with a shove. “Any juice?” he asked.
Olivia knew what it felt like now, the thing she’d done to Georgie. It was like telling someone their husband was having an affair. An act kindly meant, intended for the best, but which left you feeling oddly compromised. Faced with her flesh and blood, Georgie had opted for tolerance, possibly acceptance. Olivia hadn’t dared hope for joy. Was Georgie capable of joy? Had her baby been conceived in a state of joy? Olivia hoped so, because that was certainly the last time she had felt it. Tolerance and acceptance, she thought, were perhaps as much as anyone should hope for. She turned off the hob and carried the pan over to the table.
For a long time the monotony was a torture, but now you crave it: an emptiness to lose yourself in. Time slips through the blank days; months slide over each other into years. Their passing is marked by the slackening of your skin, the stiffening of your joints.
The people change, the names and the faces, the uniforms and the titles, but you don’t care any more. They move you, but you hardly notice. They give you a room, speak softly, but you don’t hear. So much of you is gone: they cannot reach the rest of you, the remnant locked up with the seed of your baby, deep in the core of your shrivelled womb. You can speak to them, you can answer their questions, but you can’t let them in.
It comes down to this: have they won, or has the endurance of your body claimed victory for you? Other people debate this, but you shut your eyes and imagine the whiteness of the walls. The sting of the nettles at your ankles is a distant memory, but death eludes you still.
And if, in the corner of the mirror that lines up the days, one behind another down the years, there is the reflection of a face you have known, a face distorted and transformed but recognisable, still: if there is something to stir the memory of that little girl, that young woman, will it reach you?
Chapter 40
Sarah’s cast was removed on schedule on December 23rd. The occasion had a festive air: the trauma unit was almost deserted (waiting, the plaster technician said drily, for the Christmas rush) and a little clutch of staff gathered to chat to Sarah and Guy while the plaster was cut off.
“Have a chocolate,” said the charge nurse, offering round a tin of Quality Street. “We’ve got far too many here.”
“I was on an orthopaedic ward last Christmas,” Guy said. “I thought I’d never eat chocolate again after that.”
“Road accident, was it?” asked another nurse, peeling the wrapper off a toffee.
“Mountaineering.”
And so Guy embarked on an account of his fall and the treatment that had followed. Then, encouraged by his reception, he recounted a tale of disaster narrowly averted on the higher slopes of K2 a few years before.
“We were lucky,” he finished, as his audience gaped in a pleasingly appreciative way. “A week later, the weather was much worse. Things could have turned out differently.”
“You’ve never told me that one,” said Sarah. “How many stories are there that I haven’t heard yet?”
“An almost infinite number, I fear.” Guy raised one eyebrow. “You are doomed, my dear, to a lifetime of climbing anecdotes.”
The nurses chuckled, and Sarah felt a frisson of pleasure, registering their admiration for her fiancé’s modest celebrity. It was rare to see him in public like this; easier to feel sure of his attractions when there were other people to share them with. He looked dapper, tanned, wiry: by contrast, the crew of the trauma unit looked pale and tired, as though it was a long time since they’d seen the outside world.
“When’s the wedding?” asked the charge nurse.
“Two weeks tomorrow.” Sarah wriggled her toes as the plaster was finally lifted away. “And I’m determined to walk up the aisle unaided. Except by my father, of course.”
Guy took her arm as Sarah lowered herself gingerly to the floor. “It feels wonderful to be free again,” she said.
One of the nurses handed over her crutches.
“Hang on to them for now, eh?” she said. “Don’t run before you can walk. You’ve got a follow up appointment?”
“Physio, heal thyself.” Sarah grinned. “I’ll see you in clinic next week. Thank you so much, all of you. Happy Christmas.”
Sarah and Guy made their way back through the winding corridors to the car park. They were going to Hampshire for Christmas. Her last Christmas as a single girl, Sarah’s father had said, though she’d needed no persuading: much more satisfactory, she thought again, to decamp for the duration than to shuttle between her flat and Guy’s house. Both properties were on the market, and each had acquired a dejected air during the weeks of viewings and offers and let downs. Anyway, Sarah’s brother and his family were flying over from Canada, coming for an extended stay that would include the wedding. After the quiet Christmases of the last few years there would be a proper family party, the house filled with people again – including, this time, her soon-to-be husband. Sarah was looking forward to it with a childlike mixture of excitement and dread.
Guy’s car was loaded, ready to drive straight on from the hospital. He stood by while Sarah settled herself in the passenger seat, tucking her crutches on top of the boxes of food and presents on the back seat.
“Okay?”
Sarah nodded.
As they headed out of the hospital grounds, she recalled her conversation with Olivia a couple of weeks ago a little bashfully. It had never been her way to wallow in uncertainty. Olivia was right: she was good at making the best of things, and marriage was a worthwhile focus for her energies. She felt a sense of relief at coming to her senses, returning to the rational sphere she usually occupied.
“Do you want to ring your father?” asked Guy. “Let him know when we’ll be there?” He pulled his mobile out of his top pocket and offered it to her.
Sarah shrugged. She wouldn’t usually ring ahead; but then, she couldn’t usually, because she’d be driving. She dialled the number, heard the ring tone, waited. Her father didn’t have an answerphone.
“No reply,” she said. “He’s probably gone for a walk. I said mid-afternoon, but
he won’t fuss if we’re late.”
The traffic was fairly clear for the first stage of the journey, but it thickened abruptly when they reached the M25.
“I wonder if we’d have been better going cross-country,” said Guy. “Heading down the A34 then cutting across. We could try that next time.”
Sarah grinned. “You sound just like Dad.”
“I assume that’s a compliment.”
There was silence for a minute or two while Guy shifted lanes, overtaking a couple of lorries. Then he glanced across at Sarah as though weighing something up.
“We might not have much time to talk, once we’re there,” he said. “I thought perhaps we should have a chat, before we’re swept up by Christmas and your family.”
“What about?” Sarah frowned. “Should I be worried?”
“No.” Guy put his foot on the brake as the cars in front slowed again. “No, I don’t have any doubts. But I’ve been wondering whether you do.”
“Doubts?” Sarah was stalling for time; she knew exactly what he meant. A la maison, she thought. This was the last thing she’d expected, but perhaps it shouldn’t have been. There wasn’t much Guy was afraid of, and what he did fear, he faced head-on. Unlike her, clearly.
“You’ve seemed distracted lately,” Guy said. “Not quite yourself. I’ve wondered whether you’re quite sure about me.”
“Oh dear.” Sarah didn’t look at him. “I mean, oh dear that you’ve been worried.”
Guy shook his head briefly. “Not worried, concerned.”
“You don’t need to be,” Sarah said. “I really don’t think you need to be. I’m not one of those complicated women. What you see is what you get.”
Which is why her distraction troubled him, she thought. Had she expected him to notice nothing?
“I wouldn’t want you to feel trapped before we begin,” Guy said.
Sarah stared out through the windscreen. The line of traffic stretched as far as she could see, cars and lorries nose to tail like migrating birds beneath the dense, milky sky. They could be anywhere, she thought, no distinguishing features in sight, no landmarks to situate them. She felt a sudden sense of disorientation, and with it a surge of nausea. She’d been terribly travel sick as a child and she still hated being a passenger, still easily felt claustrophobic in a car. She took a deep breath, mustered her self-control.
“It’s a big step,” she said. “Of course it is, for both of us. But it’s a normal thing to do, not some madcap plan …”
Her voice trailed off. Guy wanted a declaration, she thought, not an assurance of her good sense. Couldn’t she offer him that?
But she was wrong.
“I should have told you this before,” Guy said. “I feel badly about that. I can tell that you’re not sure about marrying me, because I’ve been in the same position myself. A long time ago, I was engaged to someone else. From the beginning I had doubts about it, but I pushed them away, put them down to nerves. I expected to feel better as the wedding approached, but I didn’t. Finally, the day before, I confessed. I told her I’d made a mistake, that I couldn’t marry her. It was an agonising moment, but it was the right thing to do. I’ve never regretted it.”
“Goodness.” Sarah’s heart was beating hard. He must be very sure, she thought, to risk himself again. And to trust her with his secret.
“I should have told you before,” Guy said again. His voice was quiet, controlled, but even so Sarah could hear in it the possibility of an emotional range she hadn’t detected before. “You can see it was a difficult thing to admit to a fiancée. Now you know I’m fallible. You know I let someone down badly. But I couldn’t bear you to be in the situation I was in, and I know my limitations. I’m not an exciting person. I’ve had an exciting life, but I don’t confuse that with being original or entertaining in myself.”
“That’s not it,” Sarah said. She felt a rush of wind in her head, a sudden chill in her chest. “It’s nothing to do with you. There’s something I should have told you, too, about my mother.”
Her voice sounded shrill and distorted, rising above the thrum of the car engine. She swallowed hard, struggling to get the muscles of her throat under control.
“My mother didn’t just die, she committed suicide. I was a disappointment to her, and when I was thirty she gave up on me. I think that’s why – maybe it’s why I’ve found this – so hard.”
There was complete silence; only for a short time, but it felt to Sarah like a moment of levelling, of absolute zero.
“Surely,” Guy said, “Surely that can’t have been the reason. Surely no mother –”
Sarah shook her head. The words came in a rush now. “I let her down. She wanted me to be a doctor, and when I didn’t manage that, she hoped I’d marry one. She wanted me to be one of those beautiful and successful women who marry well. She had high hopes of one boyfriend, someone I brought home a few times. She killed herself the day after he left me.”
“My dear Sarah.” Guy’s face looked deeply riven, years of crags and crevasses scored into his forehead and the folds around his eyes. “I’m so terribly sorry for you, but I simply can’t believe you were responsible. There must have been something else, some other explanation.”
“She’d been depressed, in the past,” Sarah said. “She’d had bouts of depression, but she’d been so much better lately, so happy. Until – “ She broke off. She ought to be crying, she thought, but she felt icy calm. “It was too much of a coincidence to ignore.”
“And the rest of your family – did they think …”
“We’ve never spoken about it. My brother was abroad when she died. My father and I don’t talk about my mother. I’ve wanted to apologise to him, but – I’ve never managed it.”
“And so you’ve never married because you blamed yourself?” Guy asked. “Because you felt you shouldn’t have that happiness without your mother?”
“I haven’t exactly been fending off suitors all these years.” Sarah laughed, a squeaky, incongruous trill. “But – maybe. For a long time I thought I’d never get married.”
“Then why me?”
Sarah turned to look at him. “Because you were so certain,” she said. Perhaps she’d only just realised this, but it seemed perfectly clear, now, that it was what had swayed her, carried her along. It was what she’d needed: not someone who would settle for her, but someone who’d fall for her, who’d be determined to have her. Every year she’d have needed more convincing, and every year the likelihood of finding someone to do it diminished.
Her eyes filled with tears now. This was the best chance for both of them, she thought; a particular serendipity. Guy’s experience meant that he could be sure enough to convince her, and his imperfection meant that she could deserve him. Just for a moment she considered saying more, making another confession, but she thought better of it. After all, what had there been to that but doubt about herself, and the terrible coincidence of another suicide? Why, after all this, risk anything more?
“And because you were right,” she said, and Guy reached a hand across to take hers, clasped tight in her lap.
It was dark by the time they turned off the motorway. As Sarah watched the familiar lanes loom and pass, the houses of her parents’ friends and the sign pointing to her old school, she thought that more than one plaster cast had been removed today, more than one thing inside her had mended. Or at least, the mending had begun, the knitting together of jagged edges that would make a decent bond. But as they approached her father’s village her apprehension grew. She could see it wouldn’t be possible for things to go on in the same way as before with her father, now she’d told Guy about her mother’s death; now she’d admitted what it had meant to her. She remembered how close they had veered to the subject last time she’d been home, how she’d felt it colouring the air between them.
“I ought to talk to Dad before the wedding,” she said.
“I think that would be a good idea.” Guy squeezed her hand.
> “But what should I say? What can he possibly say?”
It struck her that despite the pretending and avoiding, the not-talking, her father had made sure she knew how pleased he was that she was getting married. He had done his best, all these years, to look after her.
Guy looked at her. “I’m sure he doesn’t blame you. Depression is unpredictable. It can overwhelm people suddenly, for no obvious reason.”
“But there was an obvious reason,” Sarah said. “I know she was upset because I was there. I came down for the weekend, after Mike – I came to tell them.”
Guy said nothing but he smiled at her, a smile of unlimited patience. Whatever the truth was, Sarah thought, it was good to have him beside her. It was a comfort to be arriving at her father’s with Guy, not having to face the house on her own. She shut her eyes for a moment as they reached the final crossroads beside the Hare and Hounds, letting gratitude sink in. It wasn’t enough to quiet her nerves, to avert the plunging sense of stepping off a cliff, but it was a consolation, a promise for the future.
Despite the lack of streetlamps, the village was brightly lit. Strings of fairy lights twined around branches and along the fronts of houses. Curtains had been left open to show Christmas trees glittering in front windows; the solid tower of the church was illuminated by floodlights. Sarah felt a twinge of sadness and pleasure at the familiarity of it all. Perhaps she should have thought more seriously about getting married from home.
As they turned in through her father’s gate posts apprehension was replaced by surprise. The house was in darkness, the curtains open but no lights visible inside.
“That’s odd,” Sarah said. “He was definitely expecting us. I rang him last night.”
“Visiting a neighbour?” Guy suggested. “A drinks party or something?”
“He didn’t mention anything like that. More likely he’s having a nap. I’ve got a key, anyway.”
The Partridge and the Pelican Page 29
