‘A dealer in Exeter had just taken a lot of his work,’ I say, defensively. ‘They were planning a solo exhibition at his gallery.’
‘Did it ever come off?’
‘Well . . . well no.’ After Zach’s accident, I tried unsuccessfully to track the gallery down. I never retrieved the paintings he had left there. Someone is sitting on them. Unless – of course – unless Zach is.
‘There you go. Same old story.’
‘OK.’ I want to get off the phone from him now, this chippy Jim Ibsen with his jaded assumptions. ‘Look. I’m trying to get in touch with an old friend of Zach’s . . . Xenia. Does the name Xenia mean anything to you?’
‘Anya?’
‘Xenia.’
‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’
‘What about Nell and Pete: do you know them?’
‘Nell and Pete. Course I do.’
‘Perhaps I could have their number?’
A silence at the other end. For a moment I think he is about to be evasive, but he’s only taking time to look them up on his phone. He reels off their contact details. I scribble them down on a corner of the newspaper, on the grey patch of brickwork behind Murphy’s yellow hat.
I decide to ring the home number. It’s only 5 p.m. They’ll still be at work. They talked a lot about their jobs, that day we met for lunch. Long hours. Creative pressure. Demanding bosses. For Pete at least, a commute. I am brave enough to ring, but cowardly enough to want to leave a message.
My plan backfires. Nell isn’t at work. She answers the home phone breathlessly, as if she had to run upstairs when she heard it ring.
I force myself not to hang up. I remember the stickiness of our goodbyes that Sunday. Pete, his eyes narrowed, gazed over Zach’s shoulder as if something fascinating in the distance had snagged his attention.
‘It’s Lizzie Carter,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry to bother you.’
‘Lizzie Carter?’ My name means nothing to her. Or she’s pretending that it doesn’t.
‘Zach’s wife?’
A heartbeat and then: ‘Oh my God, Lizzie Carter.’
‘Do you remember?’
‘Yes.’ A slight delay – recognition, but other emotions too. I can’t gauge her tone. I wish I could see her face. An eerie dizzying thought: she does know where he is.
She recovers quickly. ‘Of course I remember. How are you? I heard about Zach. Jim read it somewhere, and I meant to write . . .’
‘Did my sister Peggy get in touch? She was going to try to.’
‘Maybe, yes. I think perhaps she did. Pete said something . . . But we’ve been busy, what with the new house, and juggling—’
In the background, a small hiccup rising to a proper cry.
‘You’ve got a baby!’
‘Yes.’ She laughs. The crying gets louder and then stops. ‘There we go. I’m on maternity until September. It’s my second actually. Do you remember, when we met I thought I might be pregnant, well I was! But that was the first. How time flies. But anyway, Lizzie Carter, how are you?’
She says it a little too enthusiastically. A forced laugh, my name repeated like code, as if she is alerting someone in the room. I close my eyes. Have I struck lucky? Was my very first guess right? Is she shielding him? If so, she’s on his side. I can’t trust her.
Or am I running away with myself? Is she just embarrassed, wondering why on earth I’ve rung?
I try to talk normally. ‘I’m sorry to ring you out of the blue. You’re probably thinking, “Aghh. What does she want?” I’m on half-term from school and I’m going to be in Brighton this week. I just hoped I might be able to buy you a cup of coffee. I just . . .’ Stop saying, ‘I just’. ‘I’ve got a few questions about Zach, and I ju— I thought you might be able to answer them for me.’
‘Oh, right.’ She sounds bright. ‘I’m not sure I’ve got anything to say.’
‘It would mean a lot to me.’
A pause – slightly too long. ‘What day?’
‘Thursday, though I could probably do Friday instead if that’s better. If you had time . . . I expect you’re pretty busy with the kids.’
‘Hang on. Let me get the diary.’
A clatter as the phone is put down on a surface, muffled voices in the distance, footsteps getting softer. And then: ‘Hello.’
It is the voice of a small child. ‘Hello,’ I say. ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’
‘I’m an alligator.’
‘Ah. I thought you might be. I was just saying to myself: that, if I’m not mistaken, is an alligator.’
‘Sorry.’ Nell is back on a different extension. ‘Put the phone down, Pidge.’
‘Goodbye,’ says the alligator.
‘Goodbye,’ I say. ‘It was very nice talking to you.’
‘Right. I could do Thursday morning. Sort of 11.30ish? If you don’t mind coming here, to the house, it would be easier.’
To the house. Would she invite me to the house if she were hiding Zach? Thursday is three days away – gives them time to conceal the traces. I should have said earlier in the week, or tracked down her address and turned up uninvited. I haven’t been thinking clearly. I should have been sharper.
‘You still there?’ she says.
‘Yes, sorry.’ I pull myself together. ‘Thank you so much,’ I say, ‘you’re very kind.’ I take down her address, on another corner of the newspaper, and we hang up.
Zach
January 2010
Two major developments today.
First off, I met the sister. Peggy. A piece of work, though Lizzie won’t have any of it. Or not much. Or only a tiny little bit, on the condition that it comes from me.
I was charming, of course. She didn’t much like the Internet aspect of our relationship, but we got over that quite quickly. Jokes and smiles and washing-up, tossed the toddler until it squealed, caught it carefully, plenty of flirtation (the kind of woman who expects it). Pretty enough; not my type. One of those spoilt thirty-somethings who think they’re seventeen, long blonde hair, boob-clinging top, skinny jeans. A social climber, smugly proud of nabbing her City-boy husband and the lifestyle that goes with him: ‘Have you not been to Dubai? Oh we love Dubai.’ A few irritatingly self-conscious verbal habits, too. ‘Oh man.’ Every other anecdote, involving a string of ‘what have yous’, was about other people’s stupidity and ended with a self-congratulatory ‘No shit, Sherlock.’ Always moaning too. Anyone would think, the way she talked, she was an impoverished drudge rather than a privileged little madam.
The house, not far from Lizzie’s, was decorated in the bland off-the-peg greige that those with money and no imagination consider the height of sophistication. I complimented her on her outfit – ‘Has anyone ever told you you dress like Alexa Chung?’ – and she gave her sister a patronising tip of the head: ‘Oh man. Tell that to Ms Fleece.’ A little later, I found myself holding Lizzie’s hand under the table, which was odd. I didn’t remember reaching for it.
Peggy had ‘news’ and we were all privy to a self-conscious moment of confusion in which the desire to boast fought against a distant concern for her sister’s feelings. The former won, natch. She took Lizzie to the other side of the kitchen to help her pour the tea. The flourish of a small black-and-white photograph – a twelve-week scan. ‘We didn’t want to tell you this time until we were sure. I know how fantastically boring other people’s pregnancies can be.’
She made a good fist of it, Lizzie, I’ll give her that. Kissing and hugging and hullabalooing. When we left, I asked if she minded and she said, ‘No. Not at all. She told me when she was ready.’ And I realised she had misunderstood. I had meant her younger sister having a second child and her having none. But it was the nonchalant ‘other people’s pregnancies’ that had stung, the casual dismissal of the sibling bond.
As we walked home across the common, she told me Peggy’s husband Rob wasn’t a ‘financier’ at all. His whole life was funded by his parents. I laughed a lot and she seemed to enjoy my amusement. I said
‘Oh man,’ and she laughed again, more guiltily. She let me kiss her, there, up against a tree, in the middle of the common. We kissed for a long time. One hand against the trunk, the other cupping the back of her head. A train passed by and the earth shuddered. We broke off. I could come back with her, she said, if I wanted . . . Cue second development.
It was risky, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I’d done some research. If Lizzie’s mother screamed at the sight of me, pointed arthritic fingers, accused me of being her intruder, it would easily be discounted – the muddle of her poor mind, the blocking of her carotid arteries, the reduced synthesis of her neurotransmitters. The timing was right, too. Sundowning, they call it, the increased confusion and agitation that often occurs in the early evening.
I needn’t have worried. The old woman hardly registered my presence. She was sitting in the overheated front room, on an ugly bed-sofa contraption with the television on, twisting her fingers, yanking at her wedding ring. Lizzie made her supper and brought it to her on a tray. The dog and I both sat there watching while Lizzie spooned food into her gaping mouth. I was beginning to think the evening would never end when she finally nodded off. I took Lizzie by the hand and led her upstairs.
If she thought it odd I knew which door to push open with my knee, she didn’t say. It was neater than on my last visit – no tangle of clothes and books. She had tidied it specially. She knew I was coming. She had planned it.
She was much more eager than I’d imagined, hungry, giving and, despite the fleeces and the practical underwear, surprisingly uninhibited. She would do anything I asked. It wasn’t what I’d expected. Better. She brought out the best in me. Afterwards, a most unusual thing happened. I fell asleep, which I never, ever do.
When I opened my eyes, she wasn’t gazing down at me as if trying to absorb my features, like Charlotte does. I couldn’t even tell she was still there at first. It was dark outside. She was sitting against the headboard with her legs up, reading the newspaper. She was tilting it to hold it into the light from the lamp.
I said, ‘Will you be lonely when your mother goes?’
She didn’t look up from the page. ‘I don’t know,’ she said after a while.
‘I could always move in to keep you company.’
She put the paper down with a crackle and looked across at me. ‘Don’t be daft,’ she said.
I pulled the duvet over my shoulder. ‘Why is that daft?’
‘We hardly know each other.’
‘That’s not true.’ She had put on a dark grey T-shirt that brought out the slate in her eyes. There were golden flecks in the iris I hadn’t noticed before. She thinks she is plain, but in certain lights she is actually quite beautiful. ‘I know you now,’ I said.
‘You live in Brighton.’
‘I could live in London.’
The door to her room eased open and the dog padded in. Lizzie bent over to stroke him, the newspaper crumpling under her outstretched arm. ‘You are very nice and you are very silly,’ she said.
I’m not very nice. I’m not built that way. And I wasn’t being very silly. I was being very serious. I didn’t like her tone. I don’t know if she was talking to me or to the dog. The last time Charlotte patronised me like that it didn’t end well. I opened my mouth to speak. Lizzie turned, as if she sensed it. She put her hand on my head. A piece of my hair twirled between her fingers. ‘It’s too soon,’ she said softly.
Inside, I was panicking. I could feel it all going wrong, spiralling out of control. What was the matter with her? This felt right. It was perfect. Didn’t she realise? Was she just going to waste what we had? I could hear my phone, in the pocket of my cast-off jeans, vibrating against the carpet. It would be Charlotte checking up, wondering where I was. The thought of getting dressed, leaving, catching a train to Brighton – the hassle – seemed jagged and ugly, and hopeless. I turned my head so Lizzie wouldn’t see my face.
I couldn’t stop myself. ‘You shouldn’t let the dog in the bedroom,’ I said. ‘It’s unhygienic.’
Chapter Eight
Lizzie
I set my alarm to go off early on Tuesday morning. I don’t want to sleep too long – the house awake, the streets busy, the road churning. I need to keep alert.
It’s dark in the bedroom. I thought I’d pulled the blinds, but now they’re tightly scrolled against the ceiling. The sky through my window, beyond the tree, is like an old bruise.
I dreamed of Zach, I know I did, but hard as I try, my eyes squeezed shut, I can’t bring the dream back. I’m left just with a mood, a breath, a pulsing in my veins. I lie there, listening to the noises of waking London – the reversing of a delivery van, a bus rattling, a helicopter circling. Any fear I had of Zach has dissipated. I feel blank and bereft. I’ve remembered the lost look I saw in his face sometimes, if I caught him unawares: that time the gallery turned down his work, or when I said I would be late back. He would cover it quickly, replace it with resentment or irritation, but I saw the vulnerability before it went.
What does he want from me? Is it to make me sorry enough to deserve his return? Or does he not know himself?
I think of him out there, desperate, confused, bedraggled.
The dog’s lying at the bottom of the bed, across my feet.
If Zach had crept into the room in the night, he would have barked. Wouldn’t he?
With Howard in the back of the car, I drive down to Colliers Wood. I am at the Beeches by eight. My mother is still asleep. For a while I sit by her bed and watch, willing her to stir. I wash her hairbrush for something to do, and talk about her medication with a nurse. When she wakes up, I get her dressed and help with breakfast. I get to the bottom of the regurgitation – they’ve been giving her milk with her tea, which she doesn’t like. Afterwards, I ask if that man has been to visit her again and she says, ‘What man?’ I bring up the safe subject of Kent and she talks again about the apple orchards. She seems more settled. As I leave, she asks when ‘the other girl’ is coming, and I have a little cry in the car. I used to do that every time.
I am meeting Jane at ten thirty in Wimbledon for a dog walk and, on the way, I find myself diverting into a grid of terraced backstreets, and then by a strip of wasteland along the River Wandle. My eyes scan every alley, every building site. Where would he be? Where would he hide? The task of looking seems insurmountable. A million sheds with broken doors. A million unofficial corrugated shelters. He could be anywhere, everywhere, in a crack between buildings, bunkered underground.
When I finally pull into the car park on Wimbledon Common, where Jane and I have arranged to meet, my senses feel impaired. I don’t feel alert, but sluggish and heavy – disarmed. Who was he? Where is he? I close my eyes, but I can’t picture his face. The backs of my eyelids are yellow and flickery, like the last spool at the end of a film. I can’t conjure up his features, or his limbs, his chest, his back. I can’t see him.
The windmill perches in a huddle of buildings a short drive from the main road. Today is flat and grey and the car park is quiet, an empty expanse of gravel pitted with puddles.
Jane’s red Volvo estate is the only car on the far side. She is waiting inside, listening to Radio 4. Woman’s Hour. I can hear Jenni Murray’s voice vibrating through the bonnet. Jane waves when she sees me coming, starts wrestling on her boots. I smile at her as I approach and experience a strange, untethered feeling. Jane – my greatest friend. Zach has come between us again. I don’t want to keep it from her, but I have to. She won’t believe me and she’d worry. She’d get Morrow involved. She’d ring Peggy, like she did at the weekend. And they’d make it worse.
She opens the door and stands up. ‘Hello,’ she says. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes.’ I speak too quickly because she is looking at me probingly. ‘I’m so sorry about Sunday,’ I add, as lightly as I can. ‘I’m sure you were supposed to be somewhere else.’
‘No,’ she says, wrinkling her nose, though I know she’s lying.
Sh
e rests her hand on my shoulder while she pulls her sock free from under her heel. She’s pretending to be casual, but she’s touching me to make sure I’m OK, that I’m not about to crumple.
I try out a joke to convince her. ‘I can’t believe I got on to bone fragments,’ I say.
‘Don’t,’ she says.
‘I did, though, didn’t I?’ I bend down to let Howard off the lead. ‘I started talking about teeth.’
She brings her hand to her mouth.
‘What was I thinking? Morrow looked appalled.’
‘I think she was taken aback.’
‘I wonder if they prepared her for bone fragments when she was on her FLO course.’
‘Poor Hannah,’ Jane says. ‘Poor you.’ We’ve started walking down the path that leads to the woods. She puts out her hand to push back a branch. ‘I wish you had told me about the letter.’
‘Oh . . .’
‘For you to find out that he read it before getting in the car . . . I can’t imagine how that must have made you feel. But I’ve been thinking . . . I have to say this.’ She stops in her tracks. ‘Zach knew you loved him, Lizzie, that you didn’t mean what you wrote. It was just a blip. It wouldn’t have made any difference. You do know that, don’t you? You were soulmates. It doesn’t change anything.’
I feel a lump at the back of my throat. She thinks Zach killed himself and that I have persuaded myself he’s still alive to free myself from the responsibility of that. For a moment her words open underneath me like a gaping hole. I make a small noise like a creak, and then I clear my throat. I wish I could convince her, but nothing I say will make any difference. She has no idea of the truth because I kept it from her. Soulmates – how simple that sounds. My fairy-tale prince, she once said. She had no idea. She didn’t know him.
Remember Me This Way Page 11
