by Jane Cable
Chapter Sixty-Six
Claire and I sit in silence. Upstairs doors slam and drawers open and close. Butter congeals on Robin’s abandoned toast. Finally she touches my arm.
“Stop him, Mum.”
“No.”
She stands up.
“Claire – no. He must do what he feels is right.”
“But Mum… don’t you love him?”
“This… this isn’t about me.”
Heavy footsteps run down the stairs. The front door opens, but it doesn’t close. Not immediately. We listen as an enormous anorak rustles from its hook and wellingtons and walking boots are gathered up, scraping across the floor. Then, finally, there is a gentle click and a few minutes later the sound of Robin’s van starting.
Then Claire does move. “Mum – what have you done?” she yells before she rushes from the room. But she is enough of my daughter not to try to follow him; instead she throws herself howling onto the sofa.
One thought and one alone comes into my mind. I whisper it out loud. “How the hell did that happen?” One minute we were having a slightly fractious but entirely normal family breakfast and the next Robin has gone. There must have been warning signs. How have I missed them?
My numbness is pierced by Claire’s sobs. I edge onto the sofa and stroke her hair.
“Sshh, darling. He’ll come back.”
“But he packed – he took everything.”
“Perhaps not everything.”
“Oh, Mum… you know what I mean.”
I have no answer. My hand runs over and over her head. The rhythm soothes me.
Claire rolls onto her back and wipes her nose on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “Why, Mum?”
I screw up my face. “I… I don’t know. It was such a small thing, after all.”
She sits up. “I don’t mean why did he leave; I mean why did you go for him like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re always doing when he’s so lovely to us. You’re a week into the holidays – you shouldn’t be stressed by now.”
“Like I always do?” Do I?
“You know you do – every little thing and you’re on his case. You were never like that with Dad.”
I can’t remember. I stand up and wander into the hall. Robin has left his keys on the table – he really does mean this. Claire hears me pick them up and starts to cry again.
I crouch beside the sofa. “What would you like me to do?” I ask.
She looks up and sniffs. “Tell me… do you want Robin back?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then phone him – say you’re sorry. He’ll come back if you do, I know he will.”
I wish I could share her confidence. “Alright. But best give him time to calm down first, don’t you think?”
Claire nods. “I’ve never seen him angry before.”
While we wait we decide to plant the vegetable patch. Claire texts Jack to postpone their date and I’m glad.
The packets of seeds are in a shoebox in the garage. Robin had a plan of where everything should go and Claire makes a better fist of remembering than I do. I keep thinking about being relegated to planting the salad at half term. Now I am following the instructions on the packs, raking over the earth, making little drills and watching as Claire counts the seeds in. The soil smells damp and comforting and the sun starts to warm my back.
In the distance the doorbell rings.
“You go,” says Claire. “It might be Robin.”
It is the longest walk across the lawn and my boots stick to my feet as I heel them off on the sill of the patio doors. I all but run across the living room and skid onto the tiles in the hall. There is a tall shape through the glass but I know it isn’t Robin. It’s Jack.
“I’m sorry to disturb you Mrs O’Briain but I was worried about Claire. I won’t stay long and I won’t be any trouble – Mum dropped me over with my bike so I can cycle back.”
I am clutching the doorframe.
“Mrs O’Briain?”
“Sorry, Jack – I was miles away. Thanks so much for coming though – Claire’s in the garden – I’ll show you.”
At first I watch them through the kitchen window. The sheer delight on Claire’s face when she sees who it is. He spins her around and wraps her into him and she just comes up to his chin. Robin holding me. I can’t think that; it isn’t – this is Claire. Jack kisses the tip of her nose and she burrows her face into his sweatshirt.
After a while she pulls away. I cannot see her face but Jack’s is tense, anxious. He is talking very fast and holding both her hands. If he glances towards the house he will see me for the peeping tom I am. I turn away and make myself a cup of tea I do not want and open a newspaper I am incapable of reading.
I hear them come through the patio door.
“I’ll be off then, Mrs O’Briain.”
I offer him a drink before he goes and he gulps down a can of coke, one hand holding Claire’s all the time. “Thanks for coming,” I say. “It really is nice of you.”
He smiles. “I so wanted to.”
Claire sees him to the front door. I suspect she waves him off down the street as well. She looks thoughtful when she comes back into the kitchen.
“Good choice, Claire,” I tell her. “Unusually considerate for a teenager.”
“Yes, he was worried about us – but also feeling a bit guilty.”
“Guilty? Why on earth would he feel guilty?”
Some coke has spilt onto the table and Claire starts to make shapes in it with her index finger. “When I texted him I said I couldn’t understand how something so small had blown up so quickly and there must be something else behind it. He came over to tell me he knew what it might be. Was it, Mum – did you and Robin argue over Jack?”
“Why would we do that? And Claire, look at me while we’re talking.”
Her head jerks up. “Robin caught Jack out. He… he went with another girl after a party and… and they bumped into Robin. Of course he asked him not to say anything but Robin said he was going to tell you. Jack wondered if perhaps that had sparked something off.”
Why is it teenagers always think they are the centre of the universe? “So Jack came around here to unburden his own guilt when you’re hurting so badly anyway?”
“No, Mum – it wasn’t like that. He said he’d wanted to tell me on Tuesday but he wasn’t brave enough. He said he wanted it out in the open and that I was different and he’d never do it again, and he didn’t want any lies between us.”
I wonder if he would have said the same if he hadn’t been caught. I wonder if by ‘went with’ he meant he’d had sex with the other girl. I wonder what Claire took it to mean. I wonder if sex means anything at all to these kids. I wonder why Robin didn’t tell me, when it was my daughter’s welfare at stake.
“Mum?”
My fury gathers pace but it is unformed, swirling circles of emotion. Purples, blacks, deep, deep reds.
“Mum… are you OK?”
Colours inside my head and bursting in front of my eyes. I stand up and grope for the sink, finding it just in time. Acrid tea and yellow bile splatter on the stainless steel. I cling to the taps as Claire supports me, her child’s body all that holds me upright.
Robin
Chapter Sixty-Seven
On Easter Monday it rained. Great torrents whipped through the gaps in Jennifer’s window frames and smashed the early blossom from the trees. I hurried from the woodstore, arms full of logs, and managed to light the Aga. Apart from laying old towels on the windowsills I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
As soon as I arrived the day before I’d left a voicemail for Stephen telling him I was back – it was his house, after all. I was relieved when he hadn’t picked up; I would’ve struggled to tell him about what had happened, so I just said I hoped me being back here wouldn’t change his plans. Even if he put the house on the market tomorrow and someone snapped it up I’d probably have a couple of mont
hs to find a new home.
I tried to see the kitchen through a buyer’s eyes. The vases in the corner of the worktop, the wooden chopping boards, the kettle with the chipped enamel spout, the piles of recipes cut from magazines; so achingly familiar to me but a total mess to anyone else. In Izzie’s kitchen I’d kept the worktops clear and sparkling. But I couldn’t think about Izzie or her kitchen right now.
Sorting out some of the crap seemed a sensible occupation and I decided to start with the attic. Jennifer’s bedroom was the largest and I pushed her bed back against the wardrobe to make the most of the floor space. Caught in the patina of fluff on the carpet was a hairgrip. As I picked it up and tucked it into the pocket of my jeans I was almost defeated before I had begun.
Dampness filled my nostrils as I opened the loft hatch. I reached up and pulled on the ladder, releasing a cascade of dust. I climbed a few steps, groped for the nearest black plastic bag and hauled it down and along the landing.
I don’t think Jennifer ever threw anything out. The bag was full of threadbare curtains and cushion covers which had been in the living room. Patterned with small birds, they had seemed alive to her when she became ill and I had changed them for plain green ones. It made no difference; she still saw sparrows flying around the room and even put out seeds for them in her best china dishes. I wondered if every bag and box would hold such cruel memories.
Some held no memories for me at all. Crates of Susan’s school books, a suitcase of toy dolls, years’ worth of Readers Digest from the 50s and 60s. Some of this might have a saleable value and I set it to one side to show to Stephen. To this pile I added two pictures in ornate frames, so mildewed I could only just make out they were landscapes, and went back to the attic to fetch the next box.
This one was mine – I knew the moment I opened the lid – it was full of papers from the early years of my business. I’d known nothing about book-keeping but Jennifer had made me list all the money I earned and keep all the receipts for things I’d bought. Yellow and faded as they were, I could still make some of them out; 59p for a packet of broad bean seeds in 1993, a handwritten garage bill for some new tyres from the same year – £45. This lot was destined to light my next bonfire.
“Robin? Where are you?”
I was so taken aback by the sound of Stephen’s voice I didn’t reply. I shoved the papers into the box and unfolded myself from the floor.
“Ga – the loft hatch is open.”
The catch in his voice loosened my tongue. “It’s OK – I’m here, in your Gran’s bedroom. I’m sorting out stuff from the attic.”
Stephen picked his way through the mess to hug me while Gareth hovered at the door. “Are you OK?” Stephen asked.
“I’ll live.”
“What happened?”
What had indeed? “Come on, let’s make a cuppa. What are you guys doing here anyway?”
“We were staying in the New Forest so when I got your message we thought we’d drop by on the way home to see how you were.”
“I didn’t mean to put you out. I just thought I should let you know I was back – it is your house, after all.” I started down the stairs but Stephen put his hand on my arm.
“And it’s your home, Robin, for however long you want it to be.”
“Now that’s downright sentimental. I mean, if you put it on the market now I’d still have at least a couple of months to sort myself out. I’m making a start, as you can see.”
“We’ll talk about it later.” The angle of his chin told me it would be futile to argue.
It was Gareth who asked what had gone wrong with Izzie and I found I couldn’t answer.
“Is the damage repairable? Do you want to repair it?” he persisted.
“I miss her so much I feel raw inside,” I confessed. “That’s why I’m not really thinking about it. And you, Mr Psychobabble, are about to tell me that I need to.”
He shook his head. “In your own time. Just shout if you feel yourself getting low.”
“Well of course I’ll get low – I’ve just walked out on the best thing I ever had or am likely to have. How low is low, for god’s sake?”
“You know the difference, Robin.”
I nodded. I suppose I did.
After they left I hopped into my van and drove to the petrol station for a few supplies, including a four pack of lager. It tasted horrible, of sugar and tin cans, but on an empty stomach it did the trick and blunted the pain just enough for the cogs to start to whir.
I now knew what people meant by the phrase seeing red. Anger was a relative stranger to me but the morning before in Izzie’s kitchen it had burst from nowhere and caused irreparable damage. Why?
I tried to trace it to its beginning, but I couldn’t. Like water running off a field, forming into streams, merging into a river, it had built unnoticed. Had Gareth started it, with his assertion that Izzie felt she needed to control me? Had he made me notice that perhaps it was true? Or was it Izzie’s obvious embarrassment in front of Jack’s parents when I told them I was a gardener? Did she really believe it made me not good enough, or did she just want me to feel like the underdog? Did it even matter now?
Tuesday had been a strange day anyway. I knew, the moment we drove down the road into West Bay and I saw the cliffs rising over the sea, that I had been there before. The memory of the bay spread out below me was so vivid, so strong. The shingle beach, the little harbour – I just remembered it, that was all.
The block of flats had clinched it. In my mind’s eye I saw them half built, surrounded by scaffolding. They had stuck out like a sore thumb but now they were just the first of a line. It was a lie I’d been to West Bay with Jennifer in the early nineties; I had travelled through myself in the autumn of 1986. I was certain of it. Well, as certain as I could be.
And there I faltered. The ring pull on the fourth can of lager fizzed back and I poured the insipid liquid into my glass. The rain was still beating against the kitchen window, fluorescent light illuminating the forsythia gyrating in the wind outside. Just like Izzie and me; twisted and tangled beyond all recognition.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
It rained for a week before the weather turned clear. I struggled to work through the downpour; the Major was kind, insisting I cleared his garage, but other clients kept me outside, battling to mend fences and scrubbing down patios. Inevitably I caught a cold which dragged me down.
But sunshine always helps. I forked the lawn behind Jennifer’s house to help it drain and tied the climbing roses back to their wires. I edged the grass to make it look tidier and my annoying cough started to ease. In the woods the trees were bursting with the brightest green leaves and I knew without looking at the calendar it was almost Beltane.
It had always been Jennifer’s favourite festival and over the last few years we had celebrated it any number of times. Whenever she had asked me if it was Beltane I had answered her yes. I don’t know if that was right or wrong, but our simple ritual of making a bonfire and carrying a lighted torch from it around the edges of her land filled her with so much delight it was never in my heart to refuse.
This year I would be doing it alone. And now I knew that it was something I could never have shared with Izzie anyway. I tried to use the thought to miss her less but it was futile.
I built the bonfire before I went to work on the Saturday morning. Seasonal clients had crawled out of the woodwork now that lawns and hedges needed cutting on a regular basis and thankfully I had hardly a daylight hour to myself. I pulled the fallen logs from the orchard and stacked them into a pyramid before starting my search for kindling. It didn’t take me long to remember the box of papers languishing in Jennifer’s bedroom. I carried it into the garden and started to scrunch the receipts and lists into balls.
I almost had enough to light the fire when I saw it – an edge of blue plastic squashed against the cardboard on one side. For a moment I wondered what it was and then I realised it was my Post Office book. I sat back on my knees a
nd opened a page at random: Weymouth 14th October 1986, Seaton 29th October, Exeter 4th November. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again the stamps were still there; a little smudged in places but official – proof – I had made my journey.
I felt no jubilation. How low was low? I took the book upstairs and put it in the chest of drawers in my bedroom, alongside my driving licence, under a pile of T-shirts.
My Beltane celebrations did not go according to plan. When I came back from work Stephen’s car was in the drive and there was a note on the kitchen table saying he and Gareth were in The Horse & Jockey. I had a quick wash and changed my clothes before strolling down the road to join them.
As far as I can remember we did a lot of drinking, played darts increasingly badly and it was pretty late when we finally got around to eating. They had obviously decided I needed taking out of myself, but by the time we wove our way home it was far too late to light the bonfire and I would have been far too drunk to strike a match anyway. It was all I could do to fall into bed.
I paid a heavy price for those few hours of oblivion, waking at four in the morning with a raging hangover. My skull thumped, my stomach churned and Izzie filled my head. I failed to stagger to the bathroom and was sick in my waste paper bin. I lay on the floor and clung to it as dawn crept into the sky.
The last thing I wanted was for Stephen to see me like this. I pulled on an old pair of jeans and a sweatshirt before padding downstairs and dowsing my face in cold water at the kitchen sink. The dew from the grass soaked into my trousers as I crossed the lawn. I averted my eyes from the untouched bonfire. Beltane had passed – there was little point in lighting it now. I had failed Jennifer’s memory and the year would be a poor one for me and for the garden.
The woods were full of bluebells and their soft shimmer faded and glowed between the trunks as the rising birdsong surrounded me. I slid to the floor under the Faerie Tree and its roots embraced me, the knots in its bark burrowing into my back. I closed my eyes, desperate to lose myself in its magic.
The air became warm and heavy with thunder. The chattering of the birds ceased. And there, in the perfect stillness, I heard myself begging ‘please, please let it come right for Izzie and me in the end’. The softness of her hands in mine; a flash of lightning; I opened my eyes to catch glimpses of her yellow dress running away from me between the trees. I leapt to my feet, heart pounding – but when I looked again there was no-one there.
