The shop fills with guests, and Jenna looks so pretty in a pink silk frock and heeled shoes, her blonde hair softly curled, and Sophie is laughing, chatting easily with the guests, recommending books. Patricia is mingling, confident, loud-voiced but not jarring, her severely short hairstyle belying her warm nature. I think, yes, Philip must be pleased with the team he has built up here. The team works.
I am standing at the top of the wide stairs that lead to the upper floors. I’ve just closed the heavy shutters at the large window, and I’m surveying the foyer below, watching the guests circulating and chatting and buying, hearing the cash register ring. Christmas carols are playing softly on the shop sound system. The door behind me marked ‘Private’ opens, and Philip comes to stand beside me.
He hands me a glass of champagne. ‘Cheers!’ he says. ‘Merry Christmas, Roberta. It’s going well, don’t you think?’
‘Yes. Very well. Everybody seems to be having a good time.’
‘And you?’
‘Yes. I’m fine. It’s a lovely idea of yours, Philip.’
‘Actually, I can’t take credit for this. It was Jenna’s idea.’
We both sip champagne, surveying the scene below. A strange silence descends on us, and I know we are both aware of it.
Philip tuts, sighs and turns to me. ‘Thank you,’ he says.
There is a look of panic about him.
‘What for?’ I ask, quietly, scared that my voice will come out too loud and people in the foyer will look up, meaning Philip and I will be required to descend the stairs and be swallowed up in the festive throng.
‘For putting up with me,’ I think he whispers.
‘For what?’
He leans in, I feel the brush of his face on mine.
‘For putting up with me.’
And I see Jenna in the foyer, chatting to dear sweet Mrs Lucas. She looks up and meets my eyes as Philip leans in to me and whispers, his cheek brushing against mine.
A little later, Philip disappears discreetly into his office, and not long afterwards his girlfriend follows him. Minutes pass, during which I chat and laugh and recommend books, but secretly, truly, all I can think about is Philip. The touch of his face on mine when he whispered to me. How it made me feel. The smell of his freshly shaved skin, his hair, his breathy scent of champagne, and something else. Something new to me, yet unfathomably familiar. Something I know, perhaps from my dreams.
Jenna emerges from the office, flushed, sad-looking. I wonder what—
‘Roberta?’ she says, stalking past me. ‘Would you come upstairs with me, please? Just for a minute.’
I follow her up the stairs, all the way into the hallowed space of Philip’s flat. She flicks on a light switch, goes into the bedroom she and Philip share, takes a suitcase from the top of the wardrobe and starts to throw clothes into it.
I stand in the doorway, watching her. ‘What are you doing?’ I ask.
‘What does it look like?’
‘You’re packing.’
‘I’m leaving.’
‘Have you had a row with Philip?’ I say.
‘No. I’ve finished with him.’
‘Oh, Jenna. Are you sure? I’m so sorry. Can I help?’ I step towards her, instinctively.
‘Help to get me out from under your feet, you mean? Out of the way?’
I step back again, stung. ‘What on earth do you mean?’
‘Oh, don’t come the innocent with me,’ she spits.
‘I meant … can I help you to patch it up with Philip?’
‘I’m not going to be second best. I’m worth more than that.’
‘Yes, you are, of course you are. But I don’t understand.’
‘I have eyes and ears – and, despite appearances, I’m pretty smart.’
‘And …?’
I watch her nervously, as she opens and shuts drawers and cupboards, takes off her high-heeled shoes and flings them across the room.
‘Maybe I’m not making much sense, Roberta. Let me help you out here. Philip is not in love with me. We don’t have a future. I’ve just had it from the horse’s mouth. As if I didn’t already know.’
‘But it’s all rather sudden, isn’t it?’
‘So what? It’s true, that’s all that matters. He means it. He’s in love with somebody else.’
‘Did he say that?’ I am aghast. I am full of wretched hope.
‘He might as well have. I accused him of it, and he didn’t deny it. I didn’t need to ask who the lucky lady is.’ Her voice is high and brittle, full of pain.
I look at the floor, my face burning in shame and anguish, disbelief and dawning hope. Jenna pushes past me and clatters around in the living room before returning to the bedroom and resuming her packing. She opens up a second suitcase.
‘It’s all right. I saw it coming. I … I haven’t always behaved well towards you. I was the one who told Francesca Dearhead about you and Charles.’
My mouth drops open. She stops packing for a moment and has the grace to look embarrassed, but when she speaks again there is a defensive, defiant edge to her voice.
‘I’m sorry, okay? I’ll admit I wanted you out of the way, but I felt guilty as soon as I’d done it, and wished I hadn’t. And you were so good to come to the clinic with me.’ Her voice wavers on the edge of tears now. ‘It’s a shame we can never be friends.’
She’s right, of course she is, but it’s an awful, awkward way to end a friendship.
Her packing completed, she puts on a coat and a pair of boots. ‘I’ll get Philip to bag up everything else and I’ll come back for it another time. After Christmas. Don’t look so surprised,’ she says, half kindly, half furiously, and she even rubs my arm. ‘You’d better go and see him. I think he’s waiting for you.’
She leaves the flat, descends the staircases, and – no doubt with a dramatic flourish – she leaves the Old and New behind.
Later – minutes, an hour, I’m not sure how long – I go back downstairs to the shop. Most people have gone. Patricia and Sophie are in a huddle at the till, talking earnestly, and they look up at me as I descend the stairs. I shake my head at them. I go to my handbag, which is hanging on a peg in the corridor where I left it, and take out my two letters.
I put one back, unread on this occasion, and finally open the other.
36
20th November 2010
Dearest Roberta,
You have found this letter, obviously. This is something I feel must be left to chance. Of course, I’d probably end up simply writing you another one; better still, I’d be a man about it and ask you in person. But I know how much you like letters, I know you love to stumble across them, read them and keep them. I know how those glimpses into other people’s lives fascinate you. So I am writing to you in the hope that you find this. And if this is all too much – or I’ve made a horrible mistake and you don’t, in fact, love me as I love you – well, I’ll just tell myself you haven’t found the letter. Oh, the games we play.
Jenna and I don’t have a future. It’s sad, because she is not a bad person, and I haven’t been entirely fair to her. But I don’t love her, and somehow I need to get up the courage to tell her that. I will do so, in my own time. I hope it will be soon, because I don’t want to keep up any pretence for longer than I have to.
Roberta, at some point in the future, when I’m free and you’re free, I’d like to take you to dinner. I’d like to take you to several dinners. I’d like us to take a chance and see if we might not just be right for each other. I’m in love with you, but I don’t know how you feel about me. You probably think I’m a middle-aged fool.
I don’t know when you will read this. But when you do, come and find me. I’m here.
Philip
I breathe deeply as I knock on the office door. I clear my throat.
‘Come in.’
I enter the office, close the door behind me.
Philip stands behind his desk. He looks at the letter in my hand. ‘Has she gone?�
�� he says.
‘Yes.’
‘Is that … my letter?’
‘Yes.’
‘I knew you’d found it. It wasn’t where I left it. I thought—’
‘I found it on my first day back,’ I interrupt. His face falls, so I hastily add, ‘But I’ve only just opened it.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘Jenna was rather upset.’
‘I know,’ he says, sadly. ‘I tried to be kind. She wasn’t totally surprised, so my conscience is soothed a little. And she was sick of me and the bookshop, she said. I’m dreary, apparently.’
‘Do you mean it?’ I blurt.
He strides round his desk, stands before me and places his hands on my shoulders. ‘Of course I mean it. Jenna, she …’
‘She was nice about it, really. She told me—’
‘Listen to me,’ he says, cutting me off. ‘Jenna was an opportunist. She probably wouldn’t see herself in such terms, but she was a gold-digger, I think, to be blunt.’
‘God.’ I don’t know what to say.
He fills the silence. ‘I can tell you something Jenna didn’t know, though she clearly had some inkling.’ He looks rather pained as he says, ‘I’m extremely well-off. A millionaire. Several times over, in fact.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Well, thank goodness for that.’
Philip laughs. ‘I’m actually the seventh Marquess of Monmouthshire,’ he says, grimacing again. ‘If I want to be. Which I don’t.’
‘I see. That makes sense.’
Somehow, none of this is surprising me. It’s as though I’d known all along, or half known, half guessed. I have an image of Babunia, sitting alone in her room in the care home, her secrets folded and wrapped deep inside her like layers of sedimentary rock.
‘Will nothing impress you, Miss Pietrykowski?’ says Philip in mock exasperation. ‘And you’re quite wrong, it does not “make sense”. It’s bollocks. I don’t believe in titles.’
‘None of this is really my world, Philip.’
‘And you couldn’t give a toss, could you?’ he asks hopefully.
‘Not really.’
‘That’s what I wanted to hear.’
‘Jenna—’ I venture.
‘She had the good grace to stand down, as it were. And she had absolutely no idea about me, not truly. Very few people do. So here we are.’
I feel weightless, like I am floating an inch or two above the floor. I don’t want to land. ‘Indeed. Here we are. What happens next?’
‘Let me buy you dinner and let’s see how it goes. It’s hardly a blind date, so I’m confident it will go swimmingly, but I don’t want to stuff it up. Our friendship’s a delicate thing.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Dinner would be nice.’
‘Tomorrow night? Or whenever you can make it. I don’t want to rush you. The new bistro? Candlelight and all that? If it’s too much, just say so, and we’ll go to the cinema or whatever. I really don’t mind.’
‘It sounds lovely, Philip. Tomorrow. It’s a date.’
37
She is listening to the radio again.
I bought it for her as a Christmas present after Suzanne told me she no longer showed any interest in the television. It’s a DAB, but she asks anybody who enters her room to tune in her ‘wireless’ for her. She has not yet learned to trust herself to use it. She probably never will, Suzanne says. It’s asking a lot when you are one hundred and ten years of age.
Suzanne is still spending a lot of time with my grandmother, she tells me, painting her nails, brushing her hair. Talking. In fact, Suzanne has some information for me. Something rather odd that Dorothea told her.
‘I think it might be important,’ she says to me breathlessly, on my arrival. She has intercepted me in the entrance hall, eager to share her news.
‘Really?’ I say. ‘Can I catch up with you after I’ve seen Babunia?’
She looks a little crestfallen, but I know she understands. I want to glean information myself, if it’s possible, if my grandmother is in the right frame of mind. It wouldn’t be right for Suzanne to snoop for me. She will be my last resort. I owe Babunia that.
I close the door of her room quietly behind me and smile at Babunia. She turned when she heard the door opening; she is remarkably alert today, which is lovely to see. A warm spring breeze wafts through her room from the open window. In the garden, children scream and run around. It’s another resident’s birthday, and her family are all visiting.
I pull up the footstool and sit before my grandmother. ‘Good morning,’ I say.
‘Shh. Please.’ She gestures at the radio.
‘Shall I brush your hair? No? Shall I paint your nails, then? I’ve brought you some red polish.’
‘If you like. Quietly, though. Please.’
Suzanne has started a vanity box, filled with nail polishes, lipsticks, eye shadows, Olay, cotton wool, cleansing lotion, hand cream … no matter her age, she maintains, a woman likes to be pampered. So I thought I’d start ‘doing’ Babunia’s nails too. I set to work. The skin of her large hands is red and wrinkled, the nails yellow and brittle. Years of doing laundry, she always tells me.
‘Is your father here?’ she says now.
‘No, not today. He’s busy.’
‘Oh, what a pity. He hasn’t visited me in such a long time.’
‘I know, Babunia. But he sends his love.’
‘How’s that wife of his?’
‘Anna? Oh, you know. Gone. She left years ago, remember? When I was six?’
‘That doesn’t surprise me. I don’t trust her one bit. She’s a nice enough young woman, but …’
It’s a strange kind of lucidity. But I’m getting used to it. As a matter of fact, I know that Anna is well; we met for lunch in London again last week. But I don’t tell Babunia that, mainly because I think it will confuse her.
I have completed the nails of one hand. I adjust the stool and take up her other hand. Red suits her, despite her advanced years. The radio programme is about Billie Holiday. I half listen to the story of her infamous life. Insistent jazz music seeps from the radio and dances around the room on the breeze.
‘I know this one!’ I say. ‘Are you still a fan of Bill— Babunia? Oh, what is it?’
Tears roll down her thin, colourless cheeks, and her lips are trembling. I continue to paint her nails, knowing that when you are crying the last thing you want is to be looked at.
‘I always think of him,’ she says eventually, in a whisper. ‘When I hear her sing.’
‘Think of who?’
‘Him. When I hear her songs.’
‘Do you mean John?’ I ask.
‘John?’
‘John. My dad. Your son?’
‘No. Not him. Not today. Not even Sidney, today. I do wish my sons would visit me!’ she cries, suddenly animated.
Who was Sidney? Was he the lost baby Anna mentioned to me? Anna. The woman who is slowly becoming my mother again. Despite everything, I like her. She’s funny and sharp and unconventional. There’s a freedom in forgiveness. And she’s thrilled for me and Philip.
‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, Babunia,’ I say, taking a chance, opening the door, inviting her to confide in me. ‘But I’m here to listen, if you do want to.’
There is a long, dreamy pause during which she seems to drift off from me, arguing with herself, in silence.
She frowns. ‘My husband,’ she says at last.
‘He died in the war, didn’t he? A long time ago, wasn’t it?’
Silence.
I decide to jump in and say it. ‘Jan wasn’t your husband, Babunia, was he? It’s okay, you know. Nobody minds.’
She ignores me. ‘I don’t think he died at all. Not then.’
‘Oh.’ I slowly paint the nail on her wedding finger. She wears no ring, and I can’t remember there ever being one. Why didn’t I notice this before? Widows wear their rings, don’t they? ‘When do you think he died, then?’
; ‘I don’t know, you see. It’s not for me to know. But I always felt he was alive, breathing air just like me. It was a comforting thought. I miss him so much. Do you know, I thought I saw him once. But he didn’t see me. And goodness knows, it probably wasn’t him. He was with a woman with blonde hair. She was much prettier than I ever was.’
Babunia’s hand shakes, but I squeeze it gently in reassurance, careful not to smudge the polish. I wonder if she notices. I sense she is somewhere else, a long way from here, and a long way from now.
‘He was a good man, Roberta,’ says Babunia finally, and she looks out into the garden where the children are frolicking in the sunshine, playing tag. But she does not see them.
‘Of course he was,’ I tell her.
‘But proud. Like all men.’
‘That’s their undoing sometimes, isn’t it?’ I say, glad to have some common ground at last. ‘Pride?’
‘Often it is,’ she says sadly.
‘Do you miss him still?’
‘Of course I miss him.’
‘You didn’t live over the brush, did you?’ Sometimes it helps to keep things light, to make little jokes. Despite the endless confusion, she still has her sense of humour, subtle and quiet.
‘No. We never lived together. He didn’t want me to keep the baby. Was it so wrong of me? I never saw him again … but I don’t think it was wrong. Do you?’
I feel drained, exhausted. Her words are off-kilter, like discordant music. He didn’t want me to keep the baby. So she did have an abortion. I wonder. Oh, that pivotal, tantalising line in my grandfather’s letter! What you do, to this child, to this child’s mother, it is wrong.
‘Oh. I … I’m not sure what to say,’ I whisper.
‘He wasn’t my husband’s child. But he wasn’t even my child, you see. It was all rather … confusing. He was Aggie’s. No. Not Aggie’s. What am I talking about? Oh dear. Oh. What was her name? Nina! Yes, that was her. Tall girl, fat. Stupid girl, really, and I … oh, the poor thing. She was hopeless and helpless. I tried. I did. I told her. I expect she’s dead by now. I’ll never know if I’m truly wicked or not. I had an accomplice, but she was a witch. But he thought I was. I had to go home. I had to go back to Mother’s house. Do you know what I found under my bed?’
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