The Shadow Between Us

by Carol Mason

  Beth inserts a piece of paper. ‘You strike a key like this.’ She punches out today’s date. ‘The key hits a ribbon made of an inked fabric and this creates a letter on the page.’

  Daniel strikes the D key. ‘It’s so noisy!’ he chuckles. I catch myself enjoying the curious whimsy of the conversation; whatever dull sadness I might have come in with melts away a little.

  ‘About eighty years ago they made a quieter version but it didn’t sell well,’ she is saying. ‘Turns out people liked the clickety-clack.’

  ‘What if you make a mistake?’ Daniel asks.

  ‘You get rid of it with this stuff.’ Ned wags a bottle of liquid paper at him then looks at me. ‘I’m barely old enough to know what this is.’

  Is this some slightly cheeky reference to our age difference? He is staring at me still, so I look away and try not to smile.

  ‘When you use a typewriter you have to compose your thoughts and your words carefully,’ Beth tells us. ‘It’s a very good exercise. You design your path before you tread it, cutting out the fluff and focusing on what really matters. It’s a great metaphor for how we should live our life.’

  ‘Can I have it to write to Irsad?’ Daniel asks.

  ‘If no one else wants to use it,’ York says, and then, ‘Daniel thinks life is all about getting what you ask for.’

  I find myself smiling as I go over to the counter to make myself something to drink. ‘Maybe Amy will want to use it to write to the poor next-door neighbour,’ I tell them playfully.

  ‘I wonder where she is tonight,’ Beth says.

  ‘Hopefully not under the neighbour’s floorboards,’ I hurl over my shoulder, and it gets a laugh.

  ‘What’s the movie about?’ I hear Ned ask right as I’m cutting off the top of a package to shake out a fresh batch of organic, fair trade cocoa powder. I hadn’t realised he’d followed me. When I turn he is leaning on the counter. There’s something keen and alive in the way he gazes at me. I feel very zeroed-in on. And now I have to try to scoop out the chocolate powder without spilling any on its way to my cup, which seems like an impossible feat.

  ‘It’s about an American writer in Paris who corresponds with an English bookseller in London who sends her hard-to-find used books.’ My voice sounds spry. ‘Their friendship lasts twenty years. It’s platonic but you’re left with the sense that it could have become more under the right circumstances.’

  ‘Why didn’t it?’

  When I glance at him again he appears highly engaged by the topic.

  ‘Because he was married.’ I turn and face him properly now. ‘In the very best cases of what might have been, somebody is always married.’

  After everyone has left, I offer to help Beth clean up. ‘Were you close with your sister?’ I say to her back, recognising a certain liberated air about myself tonight. ‘You mentioned she wasn’t into books and you were.’

  Her hands briefly stop what they’re doing and she becomes very still. ‘No.’ Just when I think she’s going to tell me to mind my business, she adds, ‘Unfortunately. Far from it.’ She turns and meets my eyes. ‘Have you any siblings?’

  ‘Nope.’ I prod at the dishwasher settings. ‘I always wished I had. It was lonely growing up. We lived on a farm that was quite a way outside of the village. Other kids didn’t really want to schlep all that distance to play with me. I spent a lot of time on my own. Books were really the only friends I had – or at least, they definitely felt like more available ones! Then when I moved over here I felt guilty that I was leaving my parents behind with essentially no one there for when they got older.’

  ‘Families can be a curse.’ She cocks her head as though she’s thinking more on that topic. ‘We were a classic example of the terrible destructive nature of jealousy.’

  I lean back against the counter and contemplate her. It’s a pretty face when you really study it. The clear green eyes, the pert little turned-up nose and neat, bud-like mouth. I wish I knew how old she is. I’d probably say early sixties, but she could be younger. Perhaps we’d all look older if we didn’t cut and colour our hair, if we rarely smiled. ‘She was jealous of you?’

  ‘No.’ She says it without reaction. ‘The other way around.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I think about this. It’s quite a thing to admit about oneself.

  She picks up a tea towel and absently twists it between her hands. ‘When your parents always praise one at the expense of the other, it becomes a breeding ground for it.’ She puts the tea towel down then places a Saran-wrapped dish in the fridge. I watch her back. Though her shapeless clothes do her no favours, she has big boobs and slim hips; she’d be the kind of person Jessica would say needs an extreme makeover. ‘If you’d like I can loan you the book,’ she says, as though making clear that wander into personal territory is over.

  I stare at her thick salt and pepper braids with the uneven milk-white parting. ‘Book?’

  ‘84 Charing Cross Road. If you haven’t read it I think you’ll probably find it’s one of those rare cases where the film is better than the novel.’ She pulls a wistful smile. ‘Anthony Hopkins is outstanding in it.’

  I am not tired when I get in. I make a cup of tea and check my email and Messenger app. No new messages. In bed, I replay the entire highly charged, somewhat offbeat evening. His homing in on me with his eyes. The schoolboy’s fantasy. Did he really say that or did I imagine it? I find myself smiling, a little bemused. For some odd reason I reach for my laptop and click on to Facebook, type Lisa Parker into the search box. But there are so many Lisa Parkers and trawling through all of them suddenly seems so absurd that I click off and stare into space. And his face returns to my mind’s eye.

  It does occur to me that it would be a very odd thing indeed, after all these years, to be intimate with someone who wasn’t Mark. A very final thing for my marriage, no doubt. I’ve had three sexual partners, and, as I once joked to Eloise, Mark has been all three of them, though it’s not strictly true: the others were just so short I can barely remember them now, except for Sebastian, my uni love. But even he feels like a blip, something I must have dressed up in my mind to be more significant than it was. Mark is who I think of when I think of love. I have never desired to be unfaithful, nor do I now even care to fudge where the line might be in order to righteously cross it. I have a feeling that sex with someone else would be less about them, and more about testing the waters of walking away.

  I try to cast the entire matter from my mind, willing sleep to come, but my subconscious seems to want to run with the ball. Ned and the schoolboy’s fantasy comment again. Ned’s eyes. And then . . . Not Ned’s eyes. Mark’s. A memory, suddenly. Mark’s arms around me. My sense of profound release, of dissolving into him. A memory drawn from grey space, a twilight place that is never illuminated enough for me to fully see it. It is just there – that feeling of myself needing him in my worst hour. Of melding into him as though we were one body and my heart was his heart.

  Distantly I hear the ping of a text and I think, He knows! Somehow we’ve undergone a form of thought transference and he’s had this urgency, suddenly, to call me. I struggle to sit up and reach for my phone.

  But it’s not Mark at all.

  Got your letter. Crazy I never knew you guys honeymooned in Florence! I love this city! Wonder if your little shop is still there?

  My little shop?

  I try to get my head around this, make sense of what my eyes are seeing. Jessica replied! She’s talking about my little shop and she’s friendly and perfectly normal – no hint of any wedge between us at all. It’s like I imagined it, dreamed there’s ever been a reason for it to be otherwise. I sink back into my pillow, practically warbling with gratitude. Thank you! Thank you!

  I find myself turning over ways to reply. But everything I can think of is overly wordy, or too loaded with intensity, like I’m in some sort of rush to build too many bridges with one brick. Keep it casual, keep it simple, like she did. So I settle for:

/>   If you run into it, take a photo for me! xx

  TWENTY

  ‘I made a pot of fish stew this morning,’ I say to Beth as I wipe up muffin crumbs from inside the display counter. ‘Jamie Oliver’s cod, shrimp and chickpeas in a wine and tomato broth. It’s very good.’

  ‘I don’t eat shellfish.’ She reaches into the oven. ‘Got a nasty poisoning when I was in my early forties. Couldn’t eat for three months. Lost thirty pounds. Never felt quite the same after – digestively.’

  ‘Lovely.’ I sigh. ‘So I suppose picking the shrimp out and just leaving the white fish wouldn’t exactly chime with your digestive sensibilities?’

  She stops what she’s doing and straightens up. ‘What?’

  ‘If I invited you to supper. Could I pick out the shrimp and we just pretend they were never in there? I’m guessing I know the answer.’

  She studies me for a moment as though unravelling a riddle. ‘But you’re not inviting me to supper?’

  ‘You’re right, I’m not. Not the easy way, in any case.’ I try not to let her see me smiling. ‘See you at six . . .’

  She shows up with flowers. ‘Are you a red or white girl?’ I ask her, taking the bouquet from her – they are quite gorgeous, though I’ve no idea where Nanette stashes her vases.

  ‘In the top right cupboard.’ She nods to the cabinets above the small pine hatch, like a mind reader.

  ‘You’ve been here before?’

  ‘For Philippine adobo night.’ She smiles. ‘But it was some time ago.’

  I shake my head. Is not even the inside of one’s cupboards private around here? Good grief!

  ‘I’m not much of a wine drinker, to answer your question,’ she says, watching me busy myself with the flowers. ‘I tend to only drink vodka when I drink at all.’

  ‘Damn. I don’t have any . . . Nanette had this place well-stocked when I moved in but there wasn’t a drop of booze to be found. Because, believe me, I looked.’

  ‘Red would do just fine, then,’ she says, sounding mildly amused. ‘Thank you.’

  I dig in the drawer for the wine opener and reach for the bottle. She watches me place it between my knees and pull.

  ‘Like an old pro.’

  I glance up. ‘Less of the old.’

  She has made an effort with her appearance – smart black pants and a plain white T-shirt dressed up with a hefty, low-slung silver pendant. I’m surprised by the transformation. The wine glugs into the glass. ‘What’s this?’ She spots the small dish on the counter.

  ‘It’s called pangrattato. Breadcrumbs, lemon zest and parsley fried in some olive oil. You scatter it on top of the soup.’ I pass her a decent-sized pour, then turn my attention to setting the table and slicing a fresh baguette.

  ‘Can I have a little more of this?’ she asks after about five minutes, and I see she means the wine.

  Not bad for someone who doesn’t normally drink it. Maybe this evening won’t be a washout after all. I pour her another decent measure, then lay the rounds of baguette on a baking sheet, drizzling them with olive oil and a sprinkling of grated Parmesan. When I look up from popping them under the grill, she has wandered into the living room and is standing by my coffee table holding the Longfellow book.

  ‘I read a bit of it most nights . . .’ I say, following her into the room. ‘I found a new poem I like. “Autumn Within”.’

  She glances at me coyly. ‘It is autumn; not without, But within me is the cold. Youth and spring are all about; It is that I have grown old.’

  I think of the words. ‘Hmm . . . Yes. Well . . .’ How different it sounds when I’m not just saying it in my head. ‘Bit of a depressing soul, was Longfellow, eh?’ I scratch my head and grimace.

  There is a beat of suspense while she stares at me as though I’ve said something utterly outlandish, and then she titters. Then she completely cracks up. The laugh seems to just burst from her, like it’s been a long time contained. It’s the oddest sound – both guttural and musical. I’ve never heard anything like it. It must go on for a good thirty seconds. She has to place both hands on her belly, as though she’s in pain.

  ‘Shit!’ I say.

  We must clue-in at the same time. I run to the oven, yank open the door. She runs after me. We stare at the cremated bread. ‘Goodbye, cheese toasts,’ I say.

  ‘That wasn’t the entire dinner though, was it?’ She continues to peer over my shoulder.

  ‘Not quite.’

  She dabs her sweaty brow with the back of her hand, clearly not fully recovered from her laughing fit. ‘Well, then, we’re fine.’

  Our bowls are empty. She stares at the six shrimp tails in mine – all that’s left of my dinner. I made a separate shellfish-free one for her, which impressed her. ‘I once went out on a first date many years ago and we ordered shrimp,’ she says. ‘Like you, I left all my tails. He reached over with his big hand and hoovered them all up.’ She wrinkles her nose. ‘I thought it was philistine behaviour. Needless to say, there wasn’t a second date.’

  I smile. I don’t feel like saying that’s exactly something Mark would have done. ‘Have you never been married?’ I ask, instead.

  ‘No.’

  I wait for more but there’s silence. ‘Right . . . Shall I open another bottle of wine?’ Her glass has been empty for ten minutes and I’ve noticed she keeps staring at it, as though willing it to kinetically refill.

  ‘It’s probably not necessary,’ she calls after me. ‘Unless you really want to. In which case one last glass might be quite nice.’

  I grab some cheeses, crackers and dark chocolate for afters, and a bottle of port, and she follows me into the living room. ‘How very British,’ she says.

  When we are sitting with the fire on low, she tells me, ‘My father was from England, you know. He grew up in a village called Haworth, in West Yorkshire. Where the Brontë sisters were from.’

  ‘I’ve been there!’ I say. ‘To the parsonage! It’s a museum. I was an English Lit major, so one summer I drove all over the country visiting the homes of my favourite writers. Kipling’s, Robert Burns’ house, Wordsworth’s Dove Cottage, the Brontës’, and Jane Austen’s Chawton Cottage.’ I smile. It seems like yesterday.

  ‘We visited the parsonage as kids. My sister and I had the most horrible fight that day. I don’t even really remember what it was about, but I was so angry I stormed off and left her. I wandered the village until dark then found my way back to my gran’s. I didn’t want to worry them. I just wanted to know if they’d actually care that I was gone. Everything was always all about her, you see. She was the only one they had eyes for.’

  ‘Veronica.’ I remember her name. It sits there like the elephant in the room.

  ‘Yes. Did you know it’s because of Veronica that I set up the Correspondents’ Club?’ She stares deeply into her wine glass like someone poised to tell a story with a nudge of encouragement. There’s a few cracker crumbs on her chest and a whole collection of them on her black pants.

  ‘How come?’ I curl my feet underneath my bottom. I love how someone else’s tale of woe gives me a break from thinking about my own.

  ‘It’s a very hard thing for me to talk about, and because of that I essentially haven’t. Not for many years.’ She looks off into space. ‘Heartbreak never truly goes away, you know. But it does get easier to navigate with time . . .’

  I can’t help but turn this idea over in my mind. Sometimes someone will say something that reminds me I am not walking my path alone. My instinct is to fight that bare truth, to argue that my journey is the hardest, my path peppered with greater land mines ready to blow me apart – way more so than your land mines. And yet lately I have had to accept that this is something I just don’t get to feel so righteous about.

  ‘You said it was about jealousy,’ I prompt her when I sense she’s reluctant to go on.

  She meets my eyes briefly. ‘Yes. As I told you, I was jealous of her. Not because she was more beautiful or cleverer or any of that. She wa
s just an ordinary, unremarkable girl like me – that’s what makes it so hard to understand why she was favoured, why I could do no right and she could do no wrong. I was four years older. It was really up to me to rise above it but I had a Bette Davis mean streak in me. I think I actually enjoyed having something to hold against her.’

  Her eyes wander off across the room again.

  ‘She was eighteen and I was twenty-two. He was right in the middle of both of us . . . Samuel.’ She draws out the three syllables of his name. ‘When she brought him home I remember he stood in our kitchen like a typically awkward twenty-year-old meeting his girlfriend’s family for the first time, and I said something provocative like, “How’s it going Sammy boy?” and she was very annoyed. “No one shortens Samuel’s name,” she said.’ She smiles. ‘I didn’t like him. I saw the way he was always looking at me. The very way he shouldn’t have been looking . . .’ Her eyes are tinged with bitterness and pain and I think of what she just said – why is it that physical pain almost always passes, but heartbreak never dies? It seems so unfair.

  ‘There are things we do in life that we know, right as we are doing them, will have consequences. I knew letting him kiss me was wrong. And when he did more than kiss me I felt . . . nothing. The sense of pleasure I’d anticipated from taking one thing away from her, well, it wasn’t as great as I imagined. There was hatred – for myself. Disgust. I truly had done my worst deed now . . .’ She shakes her head. I’m not sure she’s going to go on. ‘We were all outside on the day of the barbecue – the 4 July long weekend. I had gone back indoors. It was so hot. There was so much noise outside but inside was just so stifling and silent . . . I was in the living room by the open window. I had taken off my dress because I knew he was going to follow me – it would be our second time. I never wore bras in those days. He was staring at my body in my pale blue panties. I remember I could hear a noise like a knocking sound, and then I realised it was my heart . . . I think what I remember most was the expression on his face when she walked in. But then, it was very odd, he just started screaming at me: “Disgusting slut.” He backed away and held up the palm of his hand. Then he said, “I just walked in and she was standing by the window. Before I knew it she started taking her dress off.”’