by Alison Moore
She had been thinking that at any moment she would see her, that Eleanor would suddenly come into view or appear at her side, wanting something. Jessie remembered the till’s scrolling LED display: GOODBYE HOPE TO SEE YOU AGAIN GOODBYE . . . ‘I said I’d lost a little girl,’ said Jessie.
‘Was anyone with you in the bathroom?’
‘There was a lady standing at the sinks,’ said Jessie.
‘And what did this lady look like?’ asked the officer, poised to note down these vital details.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jessie. ‘I wasn’t really looking at her.’
‘Will you try to remember?’ asked the officer.
She did try. For years, at night, she had been seeing the blur of her in the mirror, this figure who never came into focus.
Communion
In Bruges, a woman in a bar asks me where I’ve travelled from. I tell her. ‘But that’s not where you’re from,’ she says; she asks me what I was doing there.
‘I’m not sure,’ I say. ‘I just ended up there.’
‘And what are you doing here?’
‘I’m just passing through,’ I say. ‘I’m on my way home.’
She notices my wedding ring. She asks me if I have children.
I tell her I don’t. I tell her I was always hopeful but that a child never appeared.
She laughs. ‘Poof!’ she says, making a gesture with her hands suggestive of a magic trick, of something appearing or disappearing in a puff of smoke. And then, more seriously, she says, ‘If you want a child, you’d better hurry home.’ She pretends to shoo me out of the bar as if there is no time to lose. ‘Go home,’ she says.
I stay, though, for a while. I like the beer they have here; I like the Grimbergen.
I go to an art gallery and to a cathedral. I find myself at the edge of a tour conducted in a foreign language, understanding only odd words and disembodied phrases, deciphering fragments – ‘und der Organist’. When two women pass me, I think I hear, in amongst a wash of language I cannot comprehend, ‘Kim Kardashian’.
In the morning, there was no hot water – there was a problem with the boiler – and Jessie was persuaded to leave her shower until she got home. Robert was keen to get back to Hawick in time for church, for the Sunday service.
‘Which church do you go to?’ asked Jessie, when they were on the road.
‘I’ve tried them all,’ said Robert. ‘I’ll go to the mid-morning service at the Congregational Church.’
‘I’ve wondered about going in there,’ said Jessie. ‘I keep walking past.’
‘You could come with me,’ said Robert.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jessie. ‘I’ve not had a shower.’ She did not want to enter the church for the first time smelling of sex. ‘And I’ve got the dog. I ought to take the dog for a walk.’
He dropped her off outside her house. Jessie put her travel bag inside her hallway and then walked the dog down to the river.
The dog waded into the water. Jessie, standing on the stony riverbank, breathed deeply, filling her lungs with the fresh, cold air. She loved the river. She closed her eyes and listened to the water rushing by. She thought of Robert sitting in a church pew, singing his heart out and praying to a god she found it hard to believe in.
When she opened her eyes, the dog had disappeared. ‘The Four Horsemen!’ she shouted. ‘The Four Horsemen!’ The dog came running through the water, splashing Jessie’s unwashed legs. ‘Good dog,’ she said, touching its head. ‘Good dog.’
She walked home with the dog at her heels. Closing the front door behind her, she thought she heard someone inside the house. She moved further into the hallway, which was colder than ever. She called out, ‘Hello?’ She went to the stairs and called up them, ‘Hello?’ She could hear the scratching, but other than that there was no sound, no reply.
In the kitchen, she found a corner of her window missing, glass smashed in the sink. It was too small a hole to have been used for trespass, though she did check for intruders – she found the spare room door ajar and closed it as she passed, and on her bedroom carpet she found down feathers that resembled dandelion seeds – before returning to the kitchen window to make a cardboard barricade.
The dog was looking expectant. ‘You’ve already had your breakfast,’ she told it. She supposed it had forgotten. She fed the ravenous cat, while the dog watched with its tongue hanging out.
Jessie collected her travel bag from the hallway and took it upstairs. She was feeling uneasy. She had yet to do the laundry that she normally did on a Saturday, and the gardening that she liked to get done on Sundays: there was no growth to speak of but there were leaves – dead, damp – accumulating on the grass, and there was algae climbing the walls. She had not even washed and now it was almost lunchtime; she was behind.
She stripped the bed and carried the laundry basket downstairs with the dog at her ankles.
The bedding was still damp on the line when she took the dog out for its bedtime walk. As she paused in the yard to finger her pillowcases, she saw Alasdair attempting to mend another puncture, or the same one, with only the light from his kitchen window to see by. She called hello to him over the little wall and would have stopped for a chat, but his reply was mumbled and he would not look at her. He went inside and closed the door.
Down by the river, throwing sticks and stones for the dog in the dark, she managed to put both her feet in the water, both her boots, which were not in the least bit waterproof. She squelched home and had a hot bath before getting into bed.
She was nearing the end of the Lawrence biography. When she put in her bookmark, when she laid the volume on her bedside table, she knew that very soon Lawrence would die, and she could feel the sadness of it coming.
During the week, she caught Alasdair in the yard a couple of times and tried to ask him whether he would look after the dog and the cat for a few days after Christmas, while she was away in Cambridgeshire, but on the first occasion he sloped off on his bicycle before she had got the question out, and on the second occasion he slunk into the house without speaking to her, while she called after him, ‘I’ll pay you!’
When she saw Isla, she asked her if Alasdair was all right; she said she’d been hoping to talk to him.
‘What do you want with Alasdair?’ asked Isla.
Jessie, surprised by Isla’s tone, said, ‘I was hoping he’d look after the animals when I go away after Christmas.’
‘He can’t,’ said Isla.
‘Is he going away?’ asked Jessie.
‘No,’ said Isla. ‘He’s not going anywhere.’
‘I will pay him,’ said Jessie.
‘He’s not going to do it any more,’ said Isla. ‘Please don’t ask him again. Don’t text him. Don’t Skype him. Don’t poke him on Facebook.’
Jessie was still standing on her side of the wall with her mouth open when Isla went inside and shut the door.
Back in her own living room, turning on the lamp that brought the shadows to the wall above the mantelpiece, Jessie found herself unbearably chilly. She put on a cardigan. She wanted to tell Will what Isla had said; she wanted to tell him about this terrible misunderstanding. She picked up her phone and composed a text to Robert but did not send it.
The cardigan was not enough. She thought of the blanket on the bed in the spare room; she could fetch it out of there and wear it like a shawl; it would be a dusty comforter. She left the blanket where it was though, and went to bed early instead.
She read her book. She turned a page and Lawrence died, far from home.
On Friday, she met Robert in The Bourtree.
‘I like your blouse,’ he said, as they sat down. ‘That’s a lovely blue.’
Jessie looked down at it and said, ‘It’s turquoise.’ It was the one that matched her favourite earrings. In her ears, she had simple silver hoops, which sh
e did not especially like. She was not even sure that she liked having pierced ears; it sometimes seemed like an odd thing to have had done to her lobes, to have given them those unnecessary little holes, those unnecessary little scars. The piercing of her ears had been a present from Will. ‘Now you’ll be able to wear your heirlooms,’ he had said. And she had; she had taken the turquoise earrings out of safekeeping, and had worn them along with the locket, and then lost them. She had misplaced her wedding ring as well now, though she could not remember taking it off.
‘Do you know that man?’ asked Robert. He nodded towards the bar and the figure whose bulky arms did not touch his sides.
‘Yes,’ said Jessie, only now realising that she had been watching him. He was standing in his usual spot, looking around like he was searching for someone.
As if her awareness of him had drawn his attention, he turned fully and saw her and made his way over. He was carrying his drink, a half pint of cider, it looked like; the little glass looked comically small in his hand.
‘Evening, Jessie,’ he said.
‘Good evening, Stewart,’ said Jessie. ‘Can I get you a drink?’ Even though he already had a drink, she could not help offering; she would have liked him to accept one.
‘No, thank you,’ said Stewart, holding up his little glass of cider.
‘Would you like to sit down?’ asked Jessie, patting the padded seat beside her.
‘No, thank you,’ said Stewart. ‘I won’t intrude. I just wanted to say hello.’
‘Is there any news?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Stewart. He paused as if he wished there were more to say, something to add, and then he moved away, with his drink in his hand, returning to the bar.
‘Who was that?’ asked Robert.
Jessie finished her wine and put her empty glass down next to his. ‘That was Stewart,’ she said. ‘His son walked into the path of an oncoming train. He had his earphones in and was looking at his phone. Stewart had just sent him a text message. The train was being driven by my husband, Will. It happened last year, although Stewart always says it seems like yesterday. Stewart’s son is in a coma.’ She had heard that they were talking, now, about turning off his life-support system.
They both looked at Stewart, sipping his cider and watching the door.
‘Will stopped working after that,’ said Jessie. She had sometimes thought that it was just as well that trains no longer ran along the top of their street. But after decades of dormancy, trains were once again running on the Waverley Line, and although they currently stopped short of Hawick, Jessie did not doubt that the track would be extended, the trains would reach them, sooner or later; they would hear them and perhaps even feel them in their house.
‘Will became like a shadow of himself,’ she said. ‘He was just waiting, all day, every day, for news of Stewart’s son, whose condition never changed. I couldn’t reach him. It was like he’d shut a door between us. He was absent long before he left.’
‘How long has he been gone?’ asked Robert.
‘Since January,’ said Jessie.
‘Almost a year, then,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s Christmas on Sunday,’ he added.
‘So it is.’
Robert picked up their empty glasses, took them to the bar and came back with fresh drinks, and Jessie said to him, ‘How would you like to come to my house for your Christmas dinner?’
‘That’s very kind,’ said Robert. ‘On Christmas morning, I’ll be at church. You could join me.’
‘I’ll be busy with the dinner,’ said Jessie.
‘We can eat later,’ said Robert. ‘We can cook together after church.’
But Jessie said no, she would want to start cooking in the morning. ‘There’ll be a service on the radio,’ she said. ‘I’ll listen to that in the kitchen.’
‘It’s not the same as being there,’ said Robert.
‘I’ll go some other time,’ said Jessie.
She would be glad to have someone to cook for, a reason to peel the potatoes and trim the sprouts and cut the little crosses in the stalks; a reason to roll out the pastry and cut the perfect circles and grease the holes in the pie tin. She did not think she would have cooked a Christmas dinner just for herself; she would have microwaved a portion of something from the freezer.
‘Shall I bring anything?’ asked Robert.
‘Bring my peas from your freezer,’ said Jessie.
On Christmas Day, after the morning service, Robert arrived on Jessie’s doorstep with a bottle of red wine, which he handed over, and a gift wrapped in Christmas paper, which he kept with him while he took off his shoes. He showed Jessie his socks: ‘New Christmas socks,’ he said.
‘Very nice,’ said Jessie.
He took off his coat, showing Jessie his jumper: ‘New Christmas jumper,’ he said. She admired it, and Robert, in turn, admired hers. ‘I’ll put your present under the Christmas tree,’ he said, moving towards the living room.
‘There isn’t a Christmas tree,’ said Jessie.
‘Well that’s no good,’ said Robert.
But she had switched on the fairy lights that hung from the gas light fixtures, and she had put some antlers on the dog.
‘Do you not think that’s cruel?’ asked Robert, looking at the dog.
‘He wears them every year,’ said Jessie.
‘That doesn’t make it all right,’ said Robert. ‘I bet you hate Christmas, don’t you?’ he said to the dog. ‘Here.’ He handed Jessie her present, and she produced one for him. Beneath layers of shiny wrapping paper and tissue, Jessie found a bottle of the turquoise perfume. ‘I noticed you wear it,’ said Robert. Jessie thanked him, and he carefully peeled the paper off his own gift, finding a little box much like the kind an engagement ring might come in. When he opened the lid, he found cufflinks inside, plain silver squares, on which, said Jessie, he could have something engraved. ‘You could have a favourite line of poetry,’ she said, ‘or a line from a song, or anything you like.’ She ought to have had them engraved before giving them to him, but there had not really been time, and she would not have known what to ask for.
‘Thank you,’ said Robert. ‘I love them.’
Jessie opened the wine he had brought, and handed him a glass. He took a sip. ‘That’s good,’ he said, and he raised his glass to the dinner that Jessie was making. He eyed the various dishes and pans and said, ‘I forgot the peas.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Jessie. ‘Everything else is ready now anyway. We’ll manage without the peas.’
She turned off the radio and put on some music. While Jessie laid the table, Cass Elliot sang ‘Does Anybody Love You’, and, as Jessie sat down with Robert, ‘Make Your Own Kind of Music’, which now reminded Jessie of Lost, which she had watched with Will, all six seasons, over six years of her life, and she still wasn’t really sure what had happened; she had been left with a sense of confusion and disappointment.
When they finished the first bottle of wine, they opened a second one, which Jessie had bought, but it was not as good as Robert’s and he told her so.
‘It’s all right,’ said Jessie.
‘It’s all right,’ agreed Robert.
After their Christmas pudding, they watched It’s a Wonderful Life, which Robert had never seen before. ‘How can you not have seen it?’ said Jessie. ‘It’s a classic. I watch it every year.’
‘What if it’s not on?’ asked Robert.
‘It’s always on,’ said Jessie. ‘But I’ve got the DVD so I can watch it anyway, whenever I want.’
He did not see how she could watch the same film so many times. ‘You know what’s going to happen,’ he said.
‘Shush,’ said Jessie, and turned up the sound.
They ate the mince pies and the Christmas biscuits and opened a box of chocolates, and wh
en the film finished Robert said, ‘I’ve eaten too much.’
‘Me too,’ said Jessie.
‘I do this every year,’ groaned Robert.
‘Me too.’
‘I’m never eating again,’ said Robert.
‘What are you doing in between now and New Year?’ asked Jessie.
‘I’ll be around,’ said Robert. ‘I’m going to a buffet on Wednesday. You can come with me if you like.’
‘That’s the day I’m going home,’ said Jessie, ‘to see my parents and my sister. I need someone to look after the dog and the cat,’ she added, looking questioningly at Robert.
‘I can come round and walk the dog and feed them,’ said Robert, ‘if you give me a key.’
‘I have a key I can give you now,’ said Jessie, rising from the sofa with difficulty, her belly so full of mince pies and other goodies that it was rounded. She raised the hem of her Christmas jumper to show him: ‘I look pregnant!’ she said.
‘Don’t even say that,’ said Robert. ‘That’s the last thing we want.’
1985
Jessie wished that she had not said anything about drinking a beer in the museum cafe.
‘You were drinking?’ yelled Gary. ‘While you were supposed to be looking after Eleanor?’
‘It was only one beer,’ said Jessie. ‘You can drive after one beer.’
‘That doesn’t make it right,’ said Gary. ‘Your reaction time . . .’ He raised his hands, made a gesture of disgust, and left the room without finishing his sentence.
There had not been much progress since Eleanor’s watch had been found. There had been nothing, really, but dead ends. But they never stopped expecting to see her; they never stopped listening out for a little hand knocking at the door, or little feet coming into the hallway. If Eleanor was walking all the way home, it would take her days, especially if she walked slowly, if she walked very slowly, if she needed to stop and rest – she would need to stop and rest – on her way home. ‘She always walks slowly,’ said Gail: she walked painfully slowly; she messed around, taking fairy footsteps, stopping to balance on one leg, walking backwards, holding her breath.
