The Woman Next Door

by Liz Byrski

  ‘That’s me,’ the woman says, in a more friendly tone. ‘I’m Leo’s sister, Rosemary.’

  Polly goes blank for a moment. Has she got this wrong? No, surely not, he’d definitely said Rosemary was the carer. ‘Ah . . . sorry, I actually wanted to speak to his sister Judith but if you . . .’

  Polly hears her take a deep breath. ‘I think you must be confused,’ she says. ‘Judith is Leo’s wife, I’m his sister.’

  Polly’s throat is dry as sandpaper and the room sways alarmingly. ‘His . . . wife?’

  ‘Yes, Judith is his wife. I’m his sister and my name is Rosemary.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Polly says, her voice faltering. ‘I . . . I must have misunderstood . . .’

  Another awful pause.

  ‘Perhaps so,’ Rosemary says, and her tone is different now, kindly almost. ‘Or possibly you were given incorrect information.’

  And as Polly struggles for words she hears a click as the receiver is returned to its place.

  *

  ‘Has she gone yet?’ Stella asks as she and Joyce sit in the sunshine on the terrace outside her room. ‘I hope she hasn’t gone yet.’

  ‘Polly’s been gone for two weeks. She came to see you to say goodbye.’

  Stella shakes her head; try as she might she can’t remember this. She twists her hands together. ‘I had something to give her . . . a letter.’

  Joyce nods. ‘You gave her the letter a few weeks ago. She took it to the solicitor, Mac went with her, and everything is organised as you wanted it.’

  ‘The solicitor?’

  ‘Yes . . . Jack. It’s fine, Stella, Polly is looking after everything for you.’

  ‘But the letter, she must read it before she goes . . .’ she stops for a moment, trying to remember where Polly is going, ‘to England,’ she says, grasping it at last. ‘Before she goes to England.’

  ‘Yes, she read it, she saw Jack.’

  ‘Not that letter.’ Stella fidgets irritably. People can be so annoying, you have to tell them the same thing over and over again. ‘I wrote her a letter about him, about . . . about . . .’

  ‘About Leo?’

  ‘No . . .’ Stella rummages for the name; her head seems like a big cupboard where she can’t find anything she wants. ‘Perhaps . . . yes maybe. Who is Leo?’ She feels very hot now, angry; no one seems to understand her these days. ‘What’s the matter with all of you?’ she says aloud. ‘Are you all stupid or something? Why don’t you listen to what I’m saying?’

  ‘Are you all right, Stella?’ a woman in a blue uniform asks, appearing suddenly beside her.

  ‘No,’ Stella says in her grumpiest voice. ‘No I am not all right, nobody listens to me.’

  ‘We are listening to you, Stella,’ Joyce says, resting a hand on her arm. ‘Dorothy and I are here and we are listening to you.’

  ‘Would you like some tea, Stella?’ the woman in blue asks.

  ‘Tea, yes, tea. My friend and I would like tea, and some cakes, no, some of those things I like.’

  ‘Tim Tams?’

  Joyce laughs. She looks at the blue woman. ‘Stella’s always been the Tim Tam queen.’

  ‘Yes, we keep well stocked up,’ Dorothy says with a smile. ‘You settle down, Stella, and I’ll bring you both some tea and Tim Tams,’ and she hurries out of the room.

  Stella leans across to Joyce. ‘How many Tim Tams are there in a packet?’ she asks, winking at her.

  Joyce looks bewildered. ‘I’ve no idea,’ she says. ‘A dozen maybe. Why?’

  Stella throws her head back and laughs out loud. ‘Wrong answer – no Tim Tams for you. Want to know the right answer? How many Tim Tams in a packet? Answer – never enough!’

  It’s as she bites into her third Tim Tam that Stella remembers the letter.

  ‘I wrote her a letter about Neville,’ she says through a mouthful of biscuit. ‘Neville Sachs, it wasn’t his real name, but like me he’d changed it. His real name was, was . . . Norman . . . Norman something or other, but he thought that wasn’t good enough for an actor, not convincing, I suppose. Neville Sachs he’d called himself, he chose Sachs because it was Jewish and his mother was Jewish, he thought it made him exotic – typical! Exotic indeed!’ She stops, wondering what she was going to say next, surprised to find herself talking about Neville because she never talks about him.

  ‘So you wrote a letter for Polly about this Neville?’

  ‘Of course, well he was the same, you see, like that man, her man.’

  ‘Leo?’

  ‘Yes, Leo. The same as him. So I had to tell her.’ Suddenly she remembers that Polly is not here, she has gone away. ‘Did she take it with her?’

  ‘I don’t really know,’ Joyce says. ‘She didn’t mention it to me.’

  Stella throws her hands in the air, knocking her glasses off the arm of her chair. ‘We must find it,’ she says, trying to get up, ‘I must tell her.’

  Joyce takes a firm grip on her arm. ‘I’ll look for it when I leave here,’ she says.

  ‘Too late,’ Stella says. ‘Too late.’ She slumps back into her chair.

  ‘Are you going to tell me about Neville Sachs?’ Joyce asks.

  ‘Bastard,’ Stella says loudly, then she shouts it again. ‘Bastard!’ It makes her feel better. ‘Do you want to know about Neville, Nancy?’

  ‘I’m Joyce, and I would like to know about him.’

  ‘Well I’ll tell you, you might need to tell Polly.’

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Leo, returning to his flat around midday, is wondering what exactly he and Polly are going to do for the next couple of weeks. It all feels like a bit of a chore now. He stands in the kitchen trying to imagine how it will be. Guests, in Leo’s experience, are demanding, they want your time and space, their belongings creep into every room, their needs and wants and their individual, often irritating habits have to be accommodated. They expect attention to be paid to them. And it’s not only about this visit, but about the future. Leo’s vision of ageing alongside someone who will help him through that process, support him, encourage him and, of course, care for him is one thing. The reality of living with another person is something else entirely.

  He wishes now that he had made a plan for them to stay somewhere on neutral territory and wonders whether he can solve this by suggesting a trip away somewhere, the Cotswolds perhaps, or Oxford, nice country pubs with cosy bedrooms, sloping ceilings, oak beams, country walks, a bit of history and some good food and wine. She’d like that, he’d like it, love it. That’s what this whole thing should be about, he thinks, selected moments together, little cameos scattered into the calendar.

  The message light on the phone is flashing, and he puts down his suitcase and presses ‘play’. There is a message from Marcia about a pair of glasses, and several from Polly, left over the course of the last few days, obviously with increasing irritation. She seems to have arrived early and is staying somewhere nearby. Leo stands in the kitchen pondering the situation, shaking his head. Same old, same old, he thinks, loving someone is such a trap. In his experience women always weight any sort of relationship with their expectations of how a man should behave, so that love, in whatever form, inevitably drags behind it a trailer load of responsibilities. Fall short on those and you’re in hot water. Of course he should have told her that he was staying longer in Brighton, and again when he’d decided to go from there up to Manchester. But he just hadn’t got around to it.

  Staying on had been a last minute decision, taken when he bumped into Frank Watson at the exhibition launch.

  ‘So you’re still at it, then,’ Frank had said. ‘Haven’t seen you around in a while. You’re usually popping up everywhere like a rash – thought you must be dead. And anyway, I thought that bloke from The Guardian was opening it.’

  ‘He was sick,’ Leo said. ‘I stepped in a
t the last minute. Good to see you, Frank, want to get something to eat after this?’

  They’d been at university together decades ago, and their paths had frequently crossed at conferences or writers festivals. Frank was, Leo thought, looking quite seedy; he’d retired five years ago and his wife had died the following year. He looked like the stereotype of an unhappy, heavy drinking, ageing writer who wasn’t looking after himself, and as Leo discovered over dinner, that’s exactly what he was.

  ‘I guess you’re going to the media bash?’ Frank had asked later, rummaging in his pocket for the invitation. ‘They’re holding it at our alma mater. John Snow’s doing the keynote.’ And he pushed the invitation across the table.

  Leo had studied it, seething inwardly at not having been invited, and trying to remember which year it was that he had delivered the keynote. ‘I must’ve overlooked it,’ he’d said.

  ‘Well come anyway,’ urged Frank, pouring himself another glass of wine. ‘In fact why not come back to Manchester and stay at my place. Joe Clark’s coming, proper little house party it’ll be. I’ll ask Marcia too. Haven’t had anyone to stay since Miriam died.’

  Leo had been about to decline but the idea of a nostalgic trip to Manchester began to appeal to him. And the following morning he and Frank had taken the train from Brighton to London, stopped off at Leo’s flat to pick up a couple of changes of clothes, and then taken another train to Manchester. It proved to be a lively weekend, despite the distressing evidence of Frank’s self-neglect. The house was a mess inside and out; the sheets on Leo’s bed smelled musty, dust coated the horizontal surfaces everywhere, cups and mugs were stained with tannin, and there were several piles of old clothes lying around as if in the hope that someone might turn up to wash them. And there were newspapers everywhere, small stacks, large stacks, damp and yellowing.

  The sight of this had brought Leo up short. This couldn’t happen to him, of course, thanks to the housekeeping service. Even so it was a picture of a life in decay in more than just physical terms; living evidence of the advantages of a relationship in later life. Must call Polly, let her know where I am, he’d told himself soon after they’d arrived. And an hour or so later he realised that when he’d gone back to his own place to get clean clothes, he’d put his laptop down on his desk and failed to pick it up again. Everything was in it – significantly, his address book with Polly’s mobile number in it. Fuel, he knew, for another conversation about how he should get a mobile. He thought he’d ask Frank if he could log into his computer to send an email, but then the others started to arrive and he’d not given it another thought. Frank’s motley crew of guests left early on Monday morning, back to London or elsewhere to work. Leo was planning to follow suit a little later until he thought he might just take advantage of being there to suss out possible opportunities. Perhaps the place where he started might now start something new for him. But it had proved to be a complete waste of time. Anyway, Polly will be here on Friday and he should probably give her a ring now.

  He picks up the phone and dials her number. The line is busy and, rather than leaving a message, he hangs up then replies to a couple of other messages. Ten minutes later he dials again and this time her phone rings at just the same moment that the doorbell buzzes. Phone in hand, he strolls to the door and opens it to find Polly standing there, pulling her own ringing mobile out of her bag.

  *

  Polly’s call to Cornwall had left her frozen with confusion. It wasn’t merely the shock of what she had learned, but the way she learned it. Rosemary’s tone had changed from one of irritation to something akin to sympathy. Polly sat there, on the edge of the hotel bed, staring blankly at her phone. Was it her mistake: had she simply mixed the two women’s names? But no, of course not, it was clear that one of the two women in Fowey was Leo’s wife and the other was his sister. There was no way that her conversation with Rosemary could be reworked to any other conclusion. And what was that about Polly having been ‘given the wrong information’? That was weird and it was then that Rosemary’s tone had softened. Why? What did that mean? Why didn’t she ask if she could help, or whether Polly still wanted to talk to Judith? Why . . . unless . . . unless . . . something like this had happened before; unless in the past some other woman had called also believing that Judith was Leo’s sister. One other? Maybe more than one?

  Polly’s head was pounding, she lay down, got up again and a wave of dizziness and nausea hit her. Cautiously she lay back down, eyes closed, trying to make sense of it, trying to find another explanation. But of course there was none. Eventually the feeling passed and she got to her feet and paced back and forth across her room, reliving the months since they met, searching for clues that she might have missed. There were none, she thought at first, but as she channelled deeper she saw that there were many. He had lied to her from the start, from their very first conversations in Edinburgh when they were simply casual acquaintances. Why could he not have told her then about Judith, before she was drawn into friendship and then beyond that into love? Did he always live his life this way – like a single man? She felt sick with anger and hurt. Her love for him was grounded in her belief that he was a man of great integrity, a brilliant man albeit difficult and flawed, a man who could be redeemed by love.

  You fool, you stupid fool, she’d told herself; redemption, how pathetic is that? Vying with the pain of his deception was the shame of recognition. The same old pattern of being seduced by a brilliant mind and, once there, of trying to please the seducer with appreciation, admiration, and selfless acts of caring that fed his ego. Yes, she had been more assertive than in previous relationships but she had still allowed him to determine the boundaries of the relationship. She had allowed to go unchallenged many things that seemed not quite right in the belief that by loving him she could fix him.

  Finally, burning with anger, she had picked up the hotel phone and tried again to call him but this time the line was busy. So – he was back. And without hesitation, she pulled on her jacket, grabbed her room key, and set off down the street, elbowing aside a man emerging from the door of Leo’s building in her effort to slip through to the lift.

  ‘Hey,’ the man called, stopping in the doorway, ‘you’re supposed to use the security bell . . .’

  But Polly ignored him, stepping into the lift as the doors closed, impatient to stand face to face with Leo and scream at him like a banshee. Dignity, she tells herself now as she ascends to the third floor, dignity. But she aches for the satisfaction of punching him in the face. Dignity, she tells herself as she steps from the lift and presses the doorbell. Dignity. And now, as her mobile starts to ring and Leo stands there in the open doorway, she reminds herself, one more time: dignity.

  A big smile spreads across Leo’s face. ‘Polly, you’re here, excellent. I was just calling you. Soooo sorry, my darling, I’ve made a complete balls-up of everything, raced off to Manchester and forgot to call. And I left my laptop sitting here on the desk. Can you believe it? And you arrived early! But all’s well, you’re here now.’ He reaches out a hand to draw her inside. ‘Come on in, is it too early for a drink, or I could make some coffee, a cup of tea? And then we’ll go and pick up your bags from the hotel. I thought we might head off somewhere for a few days, the Cotswolds perhaps . . .’

  Chapter Thirty-six

  April

  ‘I still can’t believe this is really happening,’ Joyce says as they stand at the barrier outside the arrivals area. ‘I’m not going to believe it until she walks through that door. Six years since she was last here, I’d started to think she’d never come home.’

  Mac puts his arm around her shoulders. ‘Me too. She really loved that job, and she loved Geneva. No more trips there for us now.’

  Joyce sucks in her breath, shifts her weight from one foot to the other and yawns. It’s almost midnight and she’s exhausted. ‘I hope she’s okay, it’s such an awful journey, she’ll be . . . oh my g
od, there she is . . .’

  Gemma has emerged from the customs area pushing a trolley bearing three large suitcases, and is standing looking around her.

  For a moment Joyce feels she might faint with excitement and relief, and as she and Mac push their way through the waiting crowd and recent arrivals she has a fleeting moment of panic. What will it be like to live with one of her children again, to have a baby in the house? But in that moment Gemma turns and sees them, her face lights up, she looks . . . Joyce hesitates . . . well she looks like Gemma, and she looks well, and happy, and absolutely enormous.

  ‘And you really are okay?’ Joyce asks for the second time when they have done the essential hugging and kissing and blotting away of tears. ‘You’re . . . well you’re really . . .’

  ‘Huge? Yes I know,’ Gemma says. ‘And I’m fine, honestly. Emirates upgraded me to business class, what a relief that was. And yes, I really am super huge, because there’s something I haven’t told you.’

  Joyce’s heart seems to shoot up into her throat. ‘What, what is it? What’s wrong? Is it the baby . . .?’

  Gemma grins and slips an arm through hers. ‘Nothing’s wrong, Mum, but yes, it’s the baby, or rather babies. I’m having twins.’

  ‘Twins?’ Joyce gasps.

  Gemma nods. ‘Twins.’

  The three of them stand there facing each other, Gemma with a half-smile on her face, Joyce stunned, and Mac slowly bursts into laughter.

  ‘Twins,’ he says. ‘Two babies? Are you kidding?’

  ‘No, Dad,’ Gemma says, resting her hand on her large belly, ‘does this look like one baby to you?’

  Mac shrugs. ‘I don’t remember what one baby looks like,’ he says, leaning over to kiss her again. ‘You could have quads in there for all I know. Congratulations, why didn’t you tell us?’

  ‘Because I knew Mum would worry so much, especially about me flying.’ She turns to Joyce and hugs her again. ‘And you see, I’m fine, honestly, and super happy that I’m not an elephant with eighteen more months to go.’